What the government knew for decades but always covered up is now being confirmed. There are many abuses in foreign adoptions, concludes an investigation committee led by former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra. Adoptees are happy with the recognition. Wish-parents fear a stop on adoptions.

"This proves that I do have a point and have not just shouted in a vacuum," says Butink. “It is nice that this is recognized. At the same time, it is crazy to be happy with the confirmation that abuses have taken place. ''

Butink filed a lawsuit against the Dutch state last year. She believes that the state and the Kind en Toekomst foundation, which arranged her adoption in 1992, made serious mistakes. The agency did not investigate whether the details of biological parents were correct or whether they gave her up for adoption voluntarily.

Barred

The judge ruled that the state is not liable because the fraudulent practices are time-barred. The court thus followed the defense of the state. Moreover, it would be impossible to detect fraud.

The adoption of children from abroad must be stopped completely for the time being. A committee led by former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra draws this conclusion in a report to be published, sources around the cabinet report to the AD .

The report on the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government in it mentions 'serious abuses' in Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The committee pointed to child theft, child trafficking, corruption, forgery and theft of documents, unethical acts of civil servants and the transfer of children to the Netherlands under false pretenses. Because today's adoption practice is still not good, bringing children to the Netherlands should stop for the time being, the advice is.

Council of Ministers on report

Friday, the Council of Ministers will talk about the report that will be published on Monday. Not everyone in the government would feel in favor of a complete stop on adoption. The ongoing adoption procedures should go ahead, some believe. A stop should therefore relate to new applications.

Zembla paid attention to abuses in intercountry adoptions in four programs. In response to that broadcast, Minister Dekker said that the “primary responsibility” for a careful adoption procedure lay and lies with the sending countries. But on the basis of later information, Dekker said he saw reason to take a closer look at the actions of the Dutch government.

HOOGE MIERDE - Immediately stopping adoptions of foreign children is a major step that is not necessary. Adoption is and will remain valuable for many children. This is the response of Inez Teurlings, chairman of the Stichting Interlandelijk Geadopterden, to the most important recommendation of the Joustra Committee, which investigated the Dutch adoption practice.

Teurlings, born in Bangladesh and raised in Hooge Mierde, is aware of abuses that are mentioned in the report of the Joustra committee revealed by this newspaper on Friday. Child trafficking, child theft and forging adoption documents, for example.

But such cases mainly took place in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Teurlings. “Then hundreds of children were adopted every year. With such numbers I can imagine that something will go wrong. Nowadays it is still about 125 children per year. ”

Prove

Teurlings emphasizes that she has not yet read the report of the Joustra committee. “I am curious about the evidence of wrongdoing. From our contacts with permit holders who mediate in adoptions, I do not get the impression that much goes wrong. Parties I know are doing well with adoption. ”

A temporary ban on the adoption of children from abroad is a step in the right direction. But it does not give Jyoti Weststrate (37) from Deventer a sense of justice. For Yanien Veenendaal (50) from Apeldoorn, it feels like a small victory.

They let this know in response to the decision by outgoing minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) to immediately suspend the adoption of children from abroad. That became known Monday morning.

In the opinion on the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government in this, reference is made to 'serious abuses'. According to Dekker, the Dutch government has fallen short of looking away from abuses for years. The committee identified child theft, child trafficking, corruption, forgery and theft of documents, unethical acts of civil servants and the transfer of children to the Netherlands under false pretenses.

Presented to a priest

Weststrate was about 2 years old, although she does not rule out the fact that she was older, when she was taken away from her biological parents in India and 'given' to a priest . She ended up in Zutphen, where questions about her origins have been waiting for answers for a lifetime. Now she tries to expose abuses in international adoption.

NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee in its report on the DNA

Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill on Wednesday

suggested the government to "pay very careful attention" to certain views

on very important issues on the proposed legislation, saying some

members have expressed their fears that the bill when it becomes a law

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) has a new advisory board. This now consists of Alexander Pechtold, Marleen Stikker, Eric Tjong Tjin Tai, Jeannine Peek and Tjibbe Joustra. Pechtold is the chairman of the new board.The new advisory board was appointed by Minister of Legal Protection Sander Dekker on the recommendation of the AP on 1 February 2021. Peek and Joustra were also members of the previous advisory board of the AP.The chairman and members are appointed for different periods. In this way, not everyone leaves at the same time and the advisory board can continue.The Advisory Council provides the AP - solicited and unsolicited - with advice on the supervisory authority's mission, vision, ambition and strategy.The members of the AP's advisory board have different backgrounds and positions:Alexander Pechtold (chairman, appointed for 4 years)

Alexander Pechtold has many years of political and administrative experience, including as a Member of Parliament and minister. Since November 2019 he has been general director of the Central Bureau for Driving Licenses (CBR).He is also chairman of the Steering Committee Renovation Binnenhof, member of the supervisory board of the Drents Museum and chairman of the National Purchasing Fund Vereniging Rembrandt.Marleen Stikker (member, appointed for 3 years)

Marleen Stikker is founder and director of Waag Future Lab for design and technology. In addition, she is currently professor of practice at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, member of the Advisory Council for science, technology and innovation, member of the Amsterdam Economic Board, co-founder and board member of Public Spaces and chair of the Consultative Body for the Physical Environment.In 2019 Marleen Stikker wrote the book 'The internet is broken'.Eric Tjong Tjin Tai (member, appointed for 3 years)

Eric Tjong Tjin Tai is Professor of Private Law at Tilburg University. He is chairman of the Cassation Commission in the interests of the law. And deputy judge at the Netherlands Commercial Court.Jeannine Peek (member, appointed for 2 years)

Jeannine Peek (photo) is General Manager of Dell Technologies Netherlands. She is also a figurehead ICT for the Top Sector ICT, board member of the NL Digital sector association and the National Register Foundation (on behalf of VNO-NCW), member of the supervisory board of the Internet Domain Registration Foundation Netherlands and ambassador for the University of Twente.Tjibbe Joustra (member, appointed for 1 year)

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change has recommended that the government assuage concerns raised over the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019, including over creation of a national databank of crime scene DNA profiles and fears of communities being targeted.

While recognising the importance of DNA technology in criminal investigation, the committee, in its report tabled in Parliament Wednesday, says, “The risk with a national databank of crime scene DNA profiles is that it will likely include virtually everyone since DNA is left at the ‘crime scene’ before and after the crime by several persons who may have nothing to do with the crime being investigated.”

It adds, “These fears (regarding the Bill) are not entirely unfounded (and) have to be recognized and addressed by the government and by Parliament as well… The Committee is of the strong opinion that an enabling ecosystem must be created soon to ensure that DNA profiling is done in a manner that is fully consistent with the letter and spirit of various Supreme Court judgments and with the Constitution.”

First proposed in 2003, the Bill has gone through several revisions, by both the Department of Biotechnology and Law Ministry. It was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee in October 2019, soon after it was passed. A number of MPs who deposed before the panel repeated fears — expressed by members earlier too — that the Bill could be misused to target segments of society based on religion, caste or political views.

The panel’s report says, “The Committee is conscious of the fact that this Bill is very technical, complex and sensitive. A number of Members have expressed concern about the use of DNA technology — or more accurately its misuse — to target different segments of our society based on factors like religion, caste or political views. These fears are not entirely unfounded (and) have to be recognized and addressed.”

LEO VARADKAR HAS told the Dáil he was “quite surprised” to hear that audio recordings of witness testimony given to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes were destroyed.

His comments come amid calls for Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman to “take immediate action” to preserve the testimony of witnesses who gave evidence to the commission.

A number of campaigners and opposition TDs have also called for the commission to not be dissolved as planned at the end of the month amid concerns of the deletion of audio recording of testimony.

They say the commission should remain in operation until its members answer questions about its final report, as well as the destruction of audio recordings of witness testimony.

Varadkar said O’Gorman is examining if it “makes sense” to extend the term of the commission so these issues can be examined.

The adoption file of Doriet Begemann (41) from Zwolle is full of mistakes. "I take into account that I have been stolen and resold."

Doriet, like thousands of other adoptees, desperately searches for her origins.

The question is whether the Dutch government played a role in illegal adoptions between 1967 and 1998. An investigation committee will hand over a report to Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) on Monday. Civil servants may have been involved , he writes when he establishes the committee in 2018.

The committee examined adoptions from countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Colombia and Indonesia.

DORIET

No love, no human contact, languishing and forgotten in the home: Under the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceau?escu, babies who did not fit the norm were mercilessly sorted out. Whats become of you?

Izidor spent the first three years of his life in the hospital.

The dark-eyed, dark-haired boy, born June 20, 1980, was abandoned when he was a few weeks old. The reason for this was obvious to all who looked: His right leg was twisted. After an illness (probably polio) he had been thrown into the sea of ??abandoned infants in the Socialist Republic of Romania.

In films from the period that capture the care of orphans, nurses are seen like assembly line workers wrapping newborns from a seemingly endless supply; with muscular arms and careless indifference, they toss the children onto a square cloth, expertly knot it into a neat bundle, and place it at the end of a line of silent, worried-looking babies. The women do not speak softly to them or sing to them. You can see the little faces trying to understand what is happening as their heads roll back and forth during the winding manoeuvre.

At his hospital in Sighetu Marma?iei, a mountain town in northern Romania, Izidor was probably fed with a bottle placed in his mouth and propped against the bars of his cot. Well past the age when children in the outer world begin to taste solid foods and then eat for themselves, he and his peers remained on their backs, sucking from bottles whose openings had been widened to allow watery gruel to flow through. Without proper care or physical therapy, the baby's leg muscles atrophied. At the age of three he was found "deficient" and transferred to the other side of town to a C?min Spital Pentru Copii Deficien?i , a home for unsavable children.