Most striking about the report on intercountry adoption is that the abuses had been grinning in the face of the state, the mediators and often the adopting families for decades. Without taking action or stepping back.

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The hardest observation is that the adopted children offered were "usually" not orphans at all. But displaced, outcast by poverty or excluded by extra-marital birth. Then they were channeled abroad via the adoption market to relieve the burden on the shelter.

So in the adoption scandal there are also "duped parents". These are the carefully anonymous or kept birth families, which have often been misguided. They have no say in this matter - they are the most to blame.

The pattern in the Dutch institutions was looking away, tolerating, neglect, neglect, powerlessness, etc. Intercountry adoption could last for so long because of a collective mistake. That a foreign child in need would in principle be served by adoption and emigration. That children were saved with it. Adoption would be "for their sake."

On Thursday 11 February, the House of Representatives will discuss this with the Joustra Committee

the abuses in intercountry adoption. The conclusions from the report of the

commission are firm. For many adopted children from the period before 1998 this is

report confirming the fact that there have been terrible wrongs

took place and the apologies that the government has made are very empty

At the moment, having children is often a difficult process for gay and lesbian couples. Adoptions are becoming increasingly difficult, there is no legislation on surrogacy in our country and multi-parenting seems taboo. 'This leads to a lot of grief and frustration for LGBTI + wish-parents,' writes Bruno De Lille. "It is urgent time for a clear framework."

Our son turned eighteen. Because of the corona crisis, there was not really a party, but he seems to like the idea that he is an adult. His joy, however, is nothing compared to ours, his parents. Because that we have been able to help a son grow up can be called a small miracle. Had I been born twenty years earlier or in another country, I would never have been a dad.

Even now many people are still surprised when my husband and I turn up somewhere with our son. A male-male couple with a child, it remains special. Because it is not because Belgium has now allowed adoption by couples of the same sex for almost fifteen years that it is not easy to have a child (entrusted) as two men.

High time for more rights for rainbow families

It used to be simple: if you were openly gay, you wouldn't have children. Point. In the 1990s and 2000s that started to change. LGBTI + couples receive legal recognition, are allowed to marry and later adopt. Since then, adoption seems obvious for gay couples who want to become dads. Although it remains difficult.

Major abuses in the system of intercountry adoption were recognized on 8 February, which also recognized all adoptees who have raised the alarm with the government and other stakeholders in recent years. The Joustra Committee concludes that the government's supervision of adoption procedures is insufficient and that no action has been taken in the event of abuses that came to light. Minister Dekker for Legal Protection concludes that the Dutch government has failed by looking away for years and offers adoptees an apology on behalf of the cabinet. Minister Dekker has decided to immediately suspend intercountry adoption procedures. Defense for Children Netherlands sees this as a wise decision. For years, Defense for Children Netherlands has taken the view that intercountry adoption must be extremely restrained, based on Article 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Not being able to check or guarantee that intercountry adoptions to the Netherlands are properly effected is an important reason to argue now for an end to intercountry adoptions.

Independent committee

At the end of 2018, Minister Dekker asked an independent committee to investigate past intercountry adoption from abroad . The reason for this was a case of illegal adoption from Brazil and involvement of government officials. In addition to Brazil, the research assignment also focuses on Bangladesh, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Ministry of Justice and Security also received signals from adoptees about possible adoption abuses in these countries. In its investigation, the Joustra Committee came across various types of abuses that occurred structurally. This concerns matters such as forgery of documents, child trafficking, fraud and corruption. But it is also about unethical acts such as allowing parents to renounce children under false pretenses or under moral pressure, deliberately creating uncertainty or ambiguity about someone's origins, and taking advantage of poverty. In certain cases, the Dutch government was aware of abuses, but did not intervene effectively. With this the abuses were perpetuated,

Apologies Minister

Minister Dekker apologizes: “It is painful to conclude that the government has not done what could be expected of it. Because although many adoptions were experienced as positive, the government should have taken a more active role by intervening in cases where there was abuse. The positive sentiment surrounding adoption in the last century - with the guiding idea that we did good with adoption - offers an explanation, but no justification. Apologies are in order for this attitude of the government, ”said Dekker. "I am grateful to the committee for the mirror in which the government did not want to look for so long."

Joure (6 Feb) - “My adoption is the best thing that happened to me in my life”, says Jaap Jonkers, candidate member of parliament for the CDA from Joure. On Monday (February 8), the Joustra Committee recommended that the adoption of children from abroad be prohibited for the time being because of 'serious abuses' from the past.

Jaap Jonkers (36) explains why he has difficulty with the committee's conclusion: “In 1985 I was abandoned at a children's home in Bolivia. Without my adoption to the Netherlands I would undoubtedly have grown up under the name Pablo in poverty and without parents. By a lot of luck I ended up with loving parents in Hardenberg and I was baptized as Jaap. Without adoption I might not have lived now. "

He realizes that there have been wrongdoing: “I will be the last to deny that. The injustice done to children through illegal practices such as child trafficking is a violation of human rights. That has to stop. The Joustra Committee's investigation will be thorough. I don't want to question that. But I think the proposed measure is very drastic. You say to children like me: You are no longer welcome in our prosperous society. I have great difficulty with that. In addition, you deprive people who have bad luck and who cannot get pregnant biologically in order to become parents. ”

The number 27 of the CDA looks like any Bolivian: “I have always felt welcome and have never felt less fully Dutch because I was born in South America and clearly look like Pablo instead of Jaap. This has never been an issue. In fact, what happened to me in my early childhood is my main motivation to dedicate myself to society and especially to those who did not get those opportunities or for whom fate was less favorable. ”

Jaap Jonkers wants to emphasize with his story that there are also many positive stories. They are now in danger of being underexposed. “My adoption has changed my life so positively that I think this story should also be heard. The reality is that children like Pablo are still being born whom I wish to grow up as Jaap. I represent that voice, since their voice can only be heard once they have become a Jaap. ”

An inquiry found systemic abuses like child trafficking, lack of record-keeping and government complicity until 1998. Practices have since improved, the government said, but not enough.

The Netherlands has temporarily halted all adoptions from abroad after an investigation found that the government had failed to act on known abuses, including child theft and trafficking, between 1967 and 1998.

“Adoptees deserve recognition for mistakes that were made in the past,” Sander Dekker, the minister for legal protection, said on Monday, as the results of the investigative report were made public. “They have to be able to count on our help in the present. And for the future we have to critically ask ourselves if and how to continue adoption from abroad.”

The government formed an independent commission in 2018 to look into international abuses after a lawsuit showed that the Dutch government had been involved in an illegal adoption from Brazil in 1980, and pointed to the possibility of more such cases. Experts said they knew of no other Western country that had stopped international adoptions.

In its report, the commission said it had found systematic wrongdoing, including pressuring poor women to give up their babies, falsifying documents, engaging in fraud and corruption, and, in effect, buying and selling children. In some cases, the Dutch government was aware of misdeeds in adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but did nothing about them and allowed them to continue, the report said.

Children who have been trafficked, adoptees introduced to the wrong biological family, distance mothers who have been robbed of their babies: the examples of wrongdoing resulting from international adoption are poignant and legion.

The harsh report that the Joustra Committee presented on Monday leaves little to the idealistic ideas that so often surrounded adoption in the past. According to the research, a 'demand-driven adoption market' has emerged 'in which large amounts of money are involved'. The committee led by former top civil servant Tjibbe Joustra has established that the system 'works like a' money laundering operation 'for children'.

It hardly comes as a surprise after reading all this disaster that the committee advises to limit international adoption completely. It is remarkable that the cabinet announced on Monday, through Minister Sander Dekker (Justice), that it would follow the advice immediately. No new adoption procedures are being started for prospective parents who want to get a child from abroad.

That is a break with the past. When in 2016 a report by the Council for the Application of Criminal Law and Youth Protection advised the government to ban foreign adoption , the criticism was still dissipated. In the past, something may have gone wrong, but for some situations adoption is the only solution, was the reasoning in The Hague at the time.

Loud voice

"In our case, adoption is not shady. There was no question of child trafficking and misery." Chantal and Dirk-Jan de Boer have to defend themselves for the adoption of their son after Joustra's hard report about abuses in adoption in the past.

Chantal and Dirk-Jan from Eagum in Friesland have just received permission for the adoption of a second child from the United States. Outgoing minister Sander Dekker announced a provisional ban on adoption on Monday. A new cabinet must look at it again. Four hundred parents who were already very far in the procedure are still allowed to continue, including Chantal and Dirk-Jan.

'Terrible Time'

The days before the report came out, they heard that the minister was going to intervene. They feared their adoption would not go through either. “It was terrible leading up to the report. We knew it was going to come and cause dust. We never expected any adoption to be called 'child trafficking'. Until yesterday it was terrible, we are there all weekend sick of it. "

The adoption may therefore continue with Chantal and Dirk-Jan, but mixed feelings still dominate due to the hard conclusions of Tjibbe Joustra. "We feel that we have to justify ourselves. We are very sorry that it is pretended to be all adoptions. People think that we are keeping it going, the child trafficking."

Colombian María Orfi Cifuentes has fallen victim to the Dutch adoption scandal. She did not want to give up her child at all, documents were forged and she was told that her son had died. She didn't see him again until 40 years later. In the Netherlands.

“I only got a glimpse of his foot,” María tells NOS. “Then they wrapped my newborn son in a blue hospital blanket and took him away. In the hospital they said he was dead, but it turned out that he had been adopted. ”

“A nun came over to my bed and said the baby was doing very badly,” she says of the day her child was born. “She had two blank sheets of paper with her and told me to sign them. That would allow me to have my son baptized before it was too late. She also asked me to give him a name. A little later a nurse came to me and told me that my son had died. ”

Psychologically heavy

It happened in 1977, but the loss carried them with it for years. “It was very difficult psychologically. I considered suicide, but I passed on for my other children. ”

Interest groups of Dutch adoptees are satisfied with the report of the Joustra Committee presented today. That committee concluded that international adoptions as currently organized can no longer take place.

"There have been many abuses in the past, but the adoption system is still susceptible to fraud and abuses continue to this day", said committee chairman Tjibbe Joustra. The government has temporarily halted all adoptions .

Many adoptees have been looking for their biological family for years and encounter all kinds of abuses and shady adoption practices. It is therefore often impossible to find out what the real reason for their adoption was and whether it was legal. For Chamila Seppenwoolde of United Adoptees International, the conclusions are not new: "We have been denouncing abuses for years." She thinks the temporary stop on adoptions should be a permanent one. "Because apologizing means not only saying sorry, but also not going to do it again."

Judy Aubrain of Plan Kiskeya from Haiti supports the conclusions of the Joustra committee and appreciates the government's apologies. "That is a great recognition for many adoptees and families in Haiti," said Aubrain.

It is not the first time that a critical report on adoptions has appeared. In 2016, the Council for the Application of Criminal Law and Youth Protection also came to the conclusion that it would be better to stop international adoptions. Much attention has also been paid in the media to shady adoption practices. Already in 2007 made network a story about stolen children from India. Zembla made several broadcasts about adoption fraud and Nieuwsuur paid attention to shady adoptions a number of times . Since the late 1960s, approximately 40,000 children have come to the Netherlands. In 2019 there were 145, mainly from Hungary and China.