Open letter UAI: stop disciplinary procedures Roelie Post

Publication date: 1 May 2018

From: Chamila Seppenwoolde

Date: 2018-05-01 19:34 GMT+02:00

Subject: Open Letter

To: jean-claude.juncker@ec.europa.eu

Cc: frans.timmermans@ec.europa.eu, guenther.oettinger@ec.europa.eu

Dear President of the European Commission Jean- Claude Juncker,

United Adoptees International (UAI) represents the interests of adoptees. Our work is entirely based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Please find attached a letter signed by us and our international network which spells out our position that intercountry adoptions should be stopped, the past investigated, and damages paid.

We write to you about the peculiar situation of Roelie Post. Since many years we are following what is happening at European level in general, and with Roelie Post in particular.

Our organisation got connected to Roelie in 2007, when she published her book Romania for Export Only, the untold story of the Romanian ‘orphans’ (see below review).

This was the start of an intense debate on intercountry adoptions. Roelie was asked in 2008 by the Dutch Ministry of Justice’s Research Department to contribute to their publication “Adoption under Fire”. Her article “The Perverse Effects of the Hague Convention” was an eye-opener.

Our organisation was represented, thanks to Roelie, at the European Parliament meeting in Brussels in 2008 (Adoptions in Europe: at what cost?). We were also present at the Strasbourg meeting (Challenges in Adoption Procedures) in 2009, where we were utterly shocked by the way the European Commission’s representatives pushed for intercountry adoption as a child protection measure. Even stating that the Hague Adoption Convention was the EU’s legal basis. It is not, as we discovered later.

Since then we have witnessed many scandals related to intercountry adoptions – passed and present: Bulgaria, Poland, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Colombia, Ethiopia, Congo …

We honestly cannot understand how the European Union can fund organisations that promote and implement the Hague Adoption Convention, which is not their legal basis and in breach with the UN Convention on the Rights of the child.

We have watched the video where Arun Dohle, who co-founded Against Child Trafficking with Roelie, blew the whistle on Roelie’s situation. This was during the Whistleblower Conference in 2014 organised by the Greens, where Arun addressed Julian Assange and Sarah Harris (lawyer of Edward Snowdon). We also watched the video of Roelie’s presentation during the whistleblower conference in Serbia in November 2016.

On 1 March this year, our Chairperson was present as observer during Roelie’s phonecall with the Director General of DG NEAR – about her appeal against her staff report. A surreal experience. Totally inappropriate enthusiastic behaviour, but not open to any discussion. He would think about it, about an amicable solution. Like the one that his team proposed to Roelie previously: paid leave until retirement. We understand he never came back to her. No amicable solution.

We now read on Twitter that instead disciplinary measures are being prepared against her.

We urge you to stop these proceedings immediately, and to give Roelie Post the gratitude and honour that she deserves.

Looking forward to your reply,

Yours sincerely,

Chamila Seppenwoolde,

Chairman UAI

============================================================================================================================

Hilbrand Westra, United Adoptees International:

12 April 2007

Roelie Post publishes a remarkable book. A book about export of Romanian

children for adoption. A book, that when one reads the first chapters,

overwhelms you if the issue is new. Unfortunate for the undersigned it is

not. I even wished that a similar empirical and personal book had been

written by the sort of researcher as Roelie Post at the time in Korea and

now in China.

Roelie Post dares to describe a taboo-issue at a level that can compare with

the works of Noreena Hertz and the movie Constant Gardener. Unfortunately

such reporting in general does not receive a lot of media attention, because

of its political sensitivity. If you read the book, you find out why. A nest

of scorpions of big (business) interests interwoven with political and

social actors, and the large demand for adoptable children, creates indeed a

market functioning that until now was systematically denied. As a result the

discussion remained in the margins of society.

The introduction of the book about a mini-breakfast conference of her

children concerning this issue illustrates in my opinion that we have gone

far beyond the real and primary question, which still is: what is the

interest of the (adoptive) child?

================================

Roelie Post brengt een opmerkelijk boek uit. Een boek over export van Roemeense kinderen in kader van adoptie. Een boek, dat als je de eerste hoofdstukken leest, je overdondert als de materie nieuw is. Helaas is dat voor ondergetekende niet zo. Ik zou zelfs wensen, dat een dergelijk emperisch en persoonlijk boek geschreven zou zijn door een type onderzoekster als Roelie Post destijds in Korea en nu in China.

Roelie Post durft een taboe-onderwerp neer te zetten met een gehalte die te vergelijken valt met het werk als die van Noreena Hertz en de film Constant Gardener. Helaas krijgen dergelijke berichten in de media over het algemeen geen aandacht wegens de politieke gevoeligheid. Als je het boek leest, kom je er eigenlijk achter waarom. Een wespennest van grote (zakelijke) belangen verweven met politieke en maatschappelijke instanties en de grote vraag van adoptiekinderen creëert wel degelijk een marktwerking die tot nu toe nog steeds stelselmatig ontkend wordt. Waardoor het een discussie blijft in de marge van de samenleving.

De inleiding van het boek over een mini-ontbijtconferentie van haar kinderen omtrent het vraagstuk illustreert in mijn mening dat we ver voorbij het werkelijke en primaire vraagstuk zijn gegaan en die is nog steeds; Wat is in het belang van het (adoptie)kind ?

http://www.roeliepost.com/2007/04/hilbrand-westra-united-adoptees-international/

Chamila Seppenwoolde | ?????

Chairman

Phone number | +31647022023

Emailadress | uai.ccseppenwoolde@gmail.com

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Organizations: United Adoptees International