Outgoing minister Weerwind about wrong adoptions: 'I cannot correct past suffering'
The Dutch government has been too careless in the past with adoptions of foreign children, acknowledges outgoing minister Franc Weerwind (legal protection). "All you can think is: How can I do this better?"
Petra Vissers July 17, 2023
In the spring, Minister Franc Weerwind (D66, legal protection) speaks with a woman adopted from China. Her date of birth? January 1st. Just like countless other Dutch people whose cradle was in China. It is an administrative date, nothing more. She tells the minister that she would like to know when she was really born.
My goodness, Weerwind thinks. A date of birth should be so obvious. “Those kinds of examples make the story hit me very hard,” he reflects on that moment in his office in The Hague. “Those questions… Who are you? When were you born, who are your parents, where are you from?”
'I'm not going to justify it'
On the morning that the cabinet would fall, Weerwind, who has since resigned, explains how he views adoption and what he can do for the now adult children who are struggling with questions about their history and identity. He cannot comment on individual cases, such as those discussed in Trouw 's new narrative podcast about adoptions from Chile.
“I cannot correct past suffering,” says Weerwind about what went wrong with adoptions from abroad. “I'm not going to justify it either. I recognize it and acknowledge it. That is why I ensure that there are now enough safeguards to prevent these mistakes from happening again. Will that always go 100 percent well? Only time will tell.”
At the start of his term of office, the possibility of adopting a child from abroad was suspended, after a harsh report by the Joustra committee on abuses, fraud and child trafficking. In March 2022, Weerwind decided to allow intercountry adoption again.
“I continuously reason from the interests of the child,” he explains. “It needs a loving and pleasant environment to grow up in. Sometimes that is really not possible in the country of origin. At the same time, we are also looking at child and youth protection there, so that intercountry adoption is ultimately no longer necessary. That may be a utopia, but let it be a utopia.”
Weerwind founded the Inea expertise center for the now adult children who have been adopted from abroad and are looking for answers about their history and identity. That should partly make up for what went wrong.
'It has often gone well'
Adopted children and their parents should be able to contact Inea with all their questions and concerns, says Weerwind. “And let the opponents and proponents of adoption come together there for a conversation. That's allowed. That's fine. I have to listen carefully to adopted children and adults, to adoptive parents and to scientists. This dossier has many faces and points of view. It's about people. About children. You have to keep that central at all times.”
“Things have not always gone well,” the minister continues. "I know those examples. But it has also often gone well. The majority of adopted children are doing well.”
But some of the adoptees who are doing well also ask the minister to work for them in a much more practical way than with an expertise center. For example, a name change still costs a lot of money, but changing a date of birth is not possible. It is difficult to accommodate adoptees, says Weerwind.
“My portfolio looks autumnal, in terms of finances. I have to be honest about that. I think it is much more important to tell people how they can start their search for biological family through Inea, and which registers they can look into. To guide them in this, because such a quest means quite a bit. What if you always saw your birth mother's signature on all your adoption papers? That you always thought she gave you away and then upon first meeting you find out she's illiterate? That's a slap in the face.”
As far as those adoption files are concerned, it is known that many files have been lost or destroyed. This was allowed by law at the time, but in many cases it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for adoptees to investigate their own life history. “I can only ensure that files are now properly stored and registered,” says Weerwind. “I have to ensure that files don't get lost.”
He is clear to those adoptees who want him to make a personal effort to tackle the people responsible for their illegal adoption. The minister does not have that space. “I always want to see: what space do I have to move,” says Weerwind. “But if I don't have that space, I think I should make that clear. I don't want to raise expectations that I cannot fulfill.”
Scolded for being Asian
Another anecdote. Weerwind tells about an adopted woman who was mocked at the beginning of the corona pandemic because of her Asian appearance. “She couldn't explain to her white parents what that feels like. I can do that, my parents are both of color. Damn, I thought then, how incredibly difficult this is.”
Such stories led some critics to the conclusion that interracial adoption, i.e. children of color to white parents and vice versa, should be banned. Weerwind: “I absolutely disagree with that. Then we make the differences too great. Heterogeneity is always wealth. The mother of my children is a white Dutch woman, I always call them double bloods. They have the richness of both cultures.”
In the meantime, there are currently several lawsuits pending regarding past adoptions. Cases of children adopted from abroad who hold the state responsible for what went wrong with their adoption and cases of Dutch women who say that they were accidentally separated from their child.
The government is not thanked for invoking the limitation period in those cases or for appealing or cassation. The House of Representatives is also critical of this. “You can look at things that happened in the past with the laws of our time in hand, but they happened in a different time,” says Weerwind.
Righting historical injustices
There are more historical injustices that seemed completely normal at the time in which they occurred, he says. Not all of this can be weighed with the current laws. “We have just reflected on the history of slavery. The Prime Minister and the King have apologized for it. It took many centuries for us to realize that we should not have treated people this way.”
It is a question that is often on the table of a minister for legal protection. How does the government deal with historical injustice and the call for it to be remedied? Weerwind: “You have to learn from it. You have to think: how can I do it differently? Better. I always want to learn from the past.”
He mentions the committee led by Micha de Winter, which conducts research into domestic adoptions from the 1950s to the 1980s. The previous investigation into this was stopped, partly due to a data leak at the ministry.
After asking whether his predecessor Sander Dekker had been too careless with the halted research, the ever-imperturbable Weerwind smiles briefly. “I only stand on the shoulders of my predecessors. You can see that I put my own emphasis on some things. Everyone can judge that for themselves.”
The Stolen Children
In Trouw 's new narrative podcast, Petra Vissers seeks the truth behind Mirjam's shadowy adoption story. She was adopted from Chile in 1972 and has been searching for the truth about her origins for decades. The Stolen Children can be listened to via the player below and via the well-known podcast channels.