Vooruit once again calls for an adoption pause: 'Too great a risk of fraud'
Vooruit MP Freya Van den Bossche is again calling for a temporary pause for intercountry adoptions. 'Only in this way can we tackle the difficulties.'
A screening of 12 adoption files from Ethiopia revealed last week that irregularities had occurred in at least some files: information on paper did not appear to correspond with reality. For example: parents in the country of origin had not voluntarily given up the children.
Flemish Member of Parliament Freya Van den Bossche (Vooruit) therefore repeats her plea for a temporary pause for intercountry adoptions. The expert panel appointed by the Flemish government already advocated this in September 2019. According to that panel, such a pause was necessary in order to thoroughly reform the intercountry adoption procedure.
Van den Bossche completely agrees with this. She has already interpellated the Ministers of Welfare about this several times, but neither Wouter Beke nor Hilde Crevits, both from CD&V, responded to that question. Beke said that he still saw a future in intercountry adoption and that you can also reform by doing. He gave the Flemish Center for Adoption (VCA) and the three adoption services two years to do so.
His successor, Hilde Crevits, also avoided the demand for a pause for intercountry adoptions. Crevits did take supporting measures and is preparing a new adoption decree.
"You cannot muck out the stable as long as the cows are still in it," says Van den Bossche. She believes that the news about the files from Ethiopia should be a wake-up call for the government, and supports the plea of adoptee Miranda Nitrandukera Aerts, published in this newspaper on Monday. In 2019, Aerts was a member of the expert panel that unanimously made these and dozens of other recommendations.
Ostrich politics
'Four years later, the Flemish government has hardly done anything with those recommendations. That is pure ostrich politics," Van den Bossche also says. 'There are still reports of children who have been unlawfully taken from their parents. There is still too great a risk of fraud, including in adoptions in other countries. If we really want to tackle fraud, we must dare to take the next step. Parents, adoptees and prospective parents must be guaranteed that everything will proceed correctly, as laid down in the Hague Convention.' Van den Bossche emphasizes that she does not want to sow fear among candidate adoptive families. 'For prospective parents who are already in the procedure, it must be considered separately how their process can be continued, despite such a temporary pause.'
The proposal for a temporary adoption pause is controversial. Adoptee associations welcomed this positively. Members of parliament from the majority in the Flemish government – N-VA, CD&V and Open VLD – are against it.