The scholarly work backing a Dutch board's recommendation to ban all foreign adoptions has been attacked as 'unscientific'. Does that argument hold water?

A local women feeds orphaned children at the Pouponniere of Mbour, Senegal. Joe Giddense/Press Association. All rights reserved.

On 1 November 2016, the Netherlands’ Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbescherming (RSJ – in English, The Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles) issued a report (in Dutch) advising the Dutch minister of security and justice to ban all foreign adoptions. Among their reasons for coming to this conclusion were documented illegalities and unethical practices in the intercountry adoption system, as well as scholarly literature that argues that intercountry adoption can lead to greater institutionalisation of children and/or disrupt the development of robust child protection systems in the children’s countries of origin.

Several faculty members of the Leiden University Knowledge Centre for Adoption and Foster Care (ADOC) immediately criticised the RSJ report. Marinus (Rien) van IJzendoorn in particular questioned the quality of the research on which the RSJ report based their decision. This included one of my own articles, Addicted to Orphans: How the Global Orphan Industrial Complex Jeopardizes Local Child Protection Systems, which I co-authored with Karen Smith Rotabi.

The ways that van IJzendoorn’s blog distorts our article’s argument deserves a personal response. It also raises crucial issues about what constitutes ‘quality research’ and the uses/objectivity of ‘science’, particularly when it comes to social justice and protection for children. Whether or not one agrees with the RSJ recommendation, these issues should also be critically addressed in the debate.

Who's really profiting from international adoptions?By Fusion | November 8, 2016

Often adoption starts out with good intentions, but the desire to adopt internationally can lead to the exploitation of some of the world’s most vulnerable children. In this episode of The Traffickers, Nelufar Hedayat learns that money meant to care for children who are being adopted doesn’t always end up in the right hands.The Traffickers airs Sundays at 10 PM on Fusion.

GOOD INTENTIONS, SAD EFFECTS 11/9/16 4:30 PM

How international adoption creates a market for child trafficking

By Sarah McClure

International adoption is often presented in the U.S. as a morally justified way of helping poor children around the world. But there’s a criminal side of this business that makes victims of everyone, from families in America who pay tens of thousands of dollars in adoption fees, to those in developing countries who are conned into giving up their children.

In Episode 1 of Fusion’s new investigative series The Traffickers, correspondent Nelufar Hedayat travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she finds herself at the intersection of international adoption and child trafficking. Here, seeming acts of kindness can be easily derailed by fraud and corruption.

In the area of social inclusion and protection, the adoption of amendments to the social welfare law, the family law and the draft law on financial support for families with children are still pending.

On rights of the child, the national plan of action for children expired in 2015. The National Council on the Rights of the Child remained inactive. Ensuring more effective coordination of the child protection system should be prioritised and efforts made to ensure uniform implementation of policy. Administrative data are still not disaggregated to enable monitoring of vulnerable groups, particularly Roma and children with disabilities. There is a need to

organise assistance to children living and/or working on the street on a local level. Violence against children remains a serious concern. A new national strategy for the prevention of and protection of children from violence still need to be developed. There is a need to align the legal framework and statistics with international standards on child abuse. Children with disabilities in large institutions face particular difficulties as regards access to education.

Additional mechanisms need to be put in place to secure full implementation of the legislation regulating juvenile offenders and child victims in criminal proceedings. Prevention programmes and programmes for reintegrating juvenile offenders into the community are only available in large cities and are funded on a project basis. Better protection for child victims who testify in criminal proceedings should be ensured through the provision of units for child victim protection.

Plan to deregulate council social workers is a bad idea that has not been properly evaluated, says Lord Ramsbotham

House of Lords chamber

Peers voted 245-213 in favour of an amendment to scrap clause 29 of the bill in its entirety. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA

Tuesday 8 November 2016

The government has suffered a defeat in the House of Lords over plans to allow councils to opt out of legal obligations to vulnerable children.

Is this adoption agency selling children?By Fusion | November 8, 2016

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nelufar visits a school and center for abandoned children. Here she meets the woman in charge, who tells Nel how she convinces parents to relinquish rights to their kids.The Traffickers airs Sundays at 10 PM on Fusion.

The blurry line between international adoption and child traffickingBy Fusion | November 8, 2016

When people look to adopt abroad they can’t be sure they’re not playing into the hands of traffickers. On this episode of The Traffickers, host Nelufar Hedayat takes us inside the underworld of international adoption and explains what surprised her most along the way.The Traffickers airs Sundays at 10 PM on Fusion.

November 7th, 2016

Journalist explores the dark world of trafficking in riveting TV seriesBritish journalist Nelufar Hedayat is hosting the new Fusion show “The Traffickers,” which looks at the dark underside of the black market in adoptions, pharmaceuticals and human organs. The former Afghan refugee tells Kathie Lee and Hoda she wants to give a voice to the people who are impacted by illicit trade.

Film The Lost Son - November 8

Arierang November 7, 2016

Guestion and we invite members of your organization for the preview of the documentary The Lost Son on November 18 next in Amsterdam. The film is about an adopted Dutch boy who has been looking for his Chinese parents as a young adult in recent years. http://www.thelostson.eu/

The preview will take place in Pakhuis de Zwijger in A'dam and will start at 7.30 pm . Then there is a forum discussion with, among others, adoption scientist René Hoksbergen and a representative of Terre Des Hommes.

We organize this preview especially for adoptees and their parents. For that reason, admission is free. Every visitor must register personally on the Pakhuis de Zwijger site. https://dezwijger.nl/programma/de-verloren-zoon

nov 7, 2016

J’ai remis la décoration de Grand Officier de l’Ordre de Léopold à Madame Catherine Day

Ce lundi 7 novembre, j’ai remis la décoration de Grand Officier de l’Ordre de Léopold à Madame Catherine Day, ancienne Secrétaire générale de la Commission européenne.

Catherine Day a été de novembre 2005 à septembre 2015 Secrétaire générale de la Commission européenne, nommée par le Président Barroso et maintenue par son successeur Juncker.