If you can't guarantee that a child protection system will work flawlessly, stop it, says Peggy Engrie, herself an adoptive mother.

Peggy Engrie

Is the adoptive mother of Thereza, who came to Belgium from Ethiopia in 2009 at the age of seven.

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Welcome here! Karenz. is Karen Gregory's personal life (style) blog. I am in my early 40s and live near Arnhem with my husband, son and dog. I was once one of the first life bloggers in the Netherlands, when I started blogging in 2001, I was one of the first 50,000 bloggers in the country. I have been nominated several times for awards in the Netherlands and Belgium, including several times for a Dutch Bloggie.

I have a background in the media and have worked for over 10 years with various media operators, media agencies and a producer. After that I trained as a weight consultant and I was a branch manager of a weight loss clinic for a number of years. I have also been working as a freelancer for 7 years and I advise companies in the field of social media.

After running the lifestyle magazine Dejlig for several years, I switched to a more personal blog in February 2017. Dejlig was incredibly successful with about 50,000 unique visitors per month, but a large survey I conducted among my readers showed that most readers liked the personal articles the most. Moreover, I personally find blogging the best thing to do. So 1 + 1 is 2 and Karenz. was born.

Karenz. is well read by the 30+ woman, but of course you are also very welcome if you have not yet passed that age.

Here you can read about various topics such as, of course, lifestyle, beauty, food, health, tips, home design, fashion, mom and kids and much more.

The Zembla documentary 'Adoption Sadness' deals with the story of two failed adoptions from Haiti. In September of this year, the mediation permit of the Nijmegen adoption agency Flash with regard to Haiti was suspended for six months by the Ministry of Justice. Flash Foundation is one of the six recognized mediation agencies in the Netherlands. The suspension was triggered by three very serious complaints from adoptive parents about adoptions by Flash from Haiti. Zembla investigated the complaints and spoke to the parents.

One of the complaints on which the report is based is that of the Thijssen family. They adopted the Haitian brothers Juno and Wensal, who are said to be three and four years old, through Flash. "The moment we knew they were coming was the best time of the entire adoption," says Ineke Thijssen. Upon arrival in the Netherlands, the children turned out to be five and seven years old, they soon showed very serious behavioral problems and they wanted to return to Haiti. The Thijssen parents decided on a remarkable step: summary proceedings against the State to investigate the possibilities of whether the children could return to their biological parents.

Pre-Waiver

A team from Zembla traveled to Haiti to investigate this case and the working method of adoption agency Flash. On the spot it turns out that the children hardly ever lived in Flash's children's home. They lived at home for the last six months before the adoption. According to experts, this quickly leads to adhesion problems. The documents regarding the adoption also appear to be incomplete: the adoptive parents do not have a valid 'pre-waiver'.

Behavioral problems

Response to the report of the Joustra Committee

Written: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 2:23 PM

On Monday, February 8, the Joustra Committee published the results of their research into past intercountry adoptions. The Meiling Foundation received the report on Monday 8 February and took note of it.

We are shocked by the committee's findings and the contents of the report. The picture presented by the committee in the report is confrontational and the conclusions and recommendations are harsh. In response to this report, the cabinet has apologized and is adopting the committee's recommendations.

The Meiling Foundation emphasizes that every abuse in adoption, wherever and whenever, is one too many and can mean serious suffering for the person concerned.

Disconcerted I read the articles and the Commentary ( In case of intercountry adoption, all supervision and control failed, 11/2) on the report of the Joustra Committee on intercountry adoption. The one-sided negative conclusions would almost make you, as an adoptee, doubt the legitimacy of your existence in the Netherlands. As if you really shouldn't have been here retroactively. As if all adopted children have been 'channeled away' to the Netherlands through deception, lies, deception and forgeries. Although life as an adoptee will always remain overshadowed by questions about identity and biological origin, there is still mainly gratitude for a dignified existence in a free, prosperous Netherlands and for having escaped social exclusion, poverty or war. It seems as if this sound should not be interpreted in this debate. Incidentally, many children were abandoned or the child was consciously renounced because of poverty or because of illegitimate birth. My Urk parents told me after my probing questions that shortly after my birth I was abandoned on the sidewalk of an orphanage in Isfahan (then Persia). You miss the bottom of your existence, but my Dutch parents are not to blame for that. By throwing everything into one negative heap, I feel like an adopted child and their sincere motives and care are done great injustice. My biological parents would also have given me up if my adoptive parents had not adopted me. My Urk parents told me after my probing questions that shortly after my birth I was abandoned on the sidewalk of an orphanage in Isfahan (then Persia). You miss the bottom of your existence, but my Dutch parents are not to blame for that. By throwing everything into one negative heap, I feel put away as an adopted child and their sincere motives and care are done great injustice. My biological parents would also have given me up if my adoptive parents had not adopted me. My Urk parents told me after my probing questions that shortly after my birth I was abandoned on the sidewalk of an orphanage in Isfahan (then Persia). You miss the bottom of your existence, but my Dutch parents are not to blame for that. By throwing everything into one negative heap, I feel put away as an adopted child and their sincere motives and care are done great injustice. My biological parents would also have given me up if my adoptive parents had not adopted me.

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A group of adoptive parents and adopted children want to stop adopting children from abroad. She has started a petition to reverse the cabinet decision to a full adoption ban. It has been signed more than 6,300 times within a week.

The initiators themselves have positive experiences with adoption from abroad. They therefore believe that “demonstrably careful international adoptions” should be allowed to continue. According to them, the recommendations of the Joustra Committee "came about in a limited, poorly substantiated and non-transparent manner".

One of the initiators is Karen Gregory, herself the adoptive mother of two children from the United States. "You can't put all countries together, many adoptions are going well and according to the rules," she says in Trouw. "A small group of adoptees has suffered tremendous trauma - I don't dispute that - but they don't have to project that on all adoptions," Gregory told the newspaper.

Full adoption stop

Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) announced the full adoption stop last Monday. About 450 adoption files of Dutch people who wanted to adopt a child from abroad are no longer completed. Parents who have already received permission in principle to bring a child to the Netherlands, may complete the procedure “after an extra test” has been carried out.

“In Mauritius, we practice adoption with the heart, in defiance of a more professional method. This observation made by the president of the National Adoption Council (NAC), Anita Bacha, depicts the current situation. Appointed president of this organization in 1988, Anita Bacha was recalled to this post shortly after the victory of the Social Alliance. “The government wanted, as soon as it took office, to put order in the adoption procedures in Mauritius. It is in this logic that the NAC has been appointed as the Central Authority in this area, ”explains Anita Bacha. A law, currently in preparation, aims to entrust the NAC with both adoption at the international level and at the local level. Working meetings, underlines Anita Bacha, bringing together the main partners, take place regularly. The objective: set up the organizational chart of the future structure and the staff training schedule. This entity, affirms the president of the NAC, will have the task of carrying out social inquiries on adoptive parents, a mission previously entrusted to the Probation Officers. “They complete their investigation in less than a week. This is due to the fact that they are not trained for this kind of work ”, deplores Anita Bacha. To avoid this, the staff of the new structure will benefit from appropriate training. He will also have to ensure the assessment and psychological follow-up of the children. Anita Bacha adds that priority will be given to local adoptive families. “There is a law in Mauritius which indeed stipulates that solutions must be sought locally for these children. But there is a vagueness because this law does not say who is supposed to seek these solutions ", highlights Anita Bacha, who intends to defuse this" confused "situation. For the month of April, the NAC received only two adoption requests from abroad. Since then, nothing.

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The report of the Joustra Committee on abuses in intercountry adoption in the past is a valuable document and does justice to victims of the abuses. I would like to add nuance to the report from my scientific expertise.

First of all, I would like to say that I am very happy with the work of the Joustra Committee on abuses in adoptions in the past. It is a good thing that our government is now taking responsibility by apologizing to victims and is committed to rectifying abuses as well as possible.

As a scientist specialized in adoption and foster care, including 10 years as coordinator of the Leiden University-based ADOC - Knowledge Center for Adoption and Foster Care, I also have critical comments.

Children's rights

First of all, the scientific literature on which the Committee relies appears to be very one-sided and important articles that provide a broader picture of the phenomenon of adoption have not been included. It almost seems that those who focus on abuses surrounding adoption at some point become trapped in one side of a reality and lose sight of other perspectives such as child protection.

A couple have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a one-year-old boy they were set to adopt.

Police said a 37-year-old woman and 34-year-old man, from Barrow-in-Furness, had been arrested on suspicion of murder, causing or allowing the death of a child and two counts of assault.

They have been released on bail, Cumbria Police said.

Cumbria County Council said the child was under its care but was living with the couple before the adoption.

The council said it had recommended an independent safeguarding review was carried out.

Ibu Ellya is 78 years old and lives in Desa Susukan in central Java. She was 25 years old when she became pregnant with a son and married to Iwansa. She was a Javanese herself and her husband was from Sumatra. At the time, not everyone was happy that she chose someone from another island. They found a Javanese with a Javanese a better match. But she was happy with Iwansa, a dentist.

She had completed junior high school and after that she was able to find work in Jakarta and later Surabaya. She was a sporty woman, loved volleyball and swimming. Singing was also a hobby of hers. When the time came for her to give birth, her eldest son was ill and to make matters worse she was told the very sad news that her husband had died ...

Adoption

Photo credits: Bud Wichers

Giving birth without a child