Foreign adoption: 'No one has the courage to stop it'

Intercountry adoption has been under discussion for years. Why does the Flemish government spend 1 million euros on 29 adopted children from abroad?

It is May 19, 2014. Chairman Luc Broes and treasurer Adelain Vandenbrouck of the adoption service FIAC are on their way to a conversation with Ariane Van den Berghe, head of the Flemish Center for Adoption (VCA). FIAC had been experiencing financial problems for several years at that time. The two directors turn to the Flemish adoption officer for additional resources, in the hope of saving their service.

The number of intercountry adoptions has been declining sharply for several years: from 244 in 2009 to 61 in 2014, a drop of 75 percent in five years. Not only FIAC, but also the two other intercountry adoption services - Ray of Hope and Het Kleine Mirakel - write in their annual reports that they feel the impact of the declining number of adoptions on their operations and income. Het Kleine Mirakel is experiencing difficulties due to the loss of adoptions from Kazakhstan, while at FIAC adoptions from Ethiopia are disappearing. The financial impact is greatest at Ray of Hope: at that moment it is heading for a deficit of 70,000 euros.

FIAC is being heard: adoption officer Van den Berghe promises to adjust the subsidy scheme in favor of the services. And while intercountry adoption is increasingly being discussed. What convinced the policy to still stand up for the three adoption services?

Best interests of the child

Who controls the system? According to Professor David Smolin, an adoption expert at the University of Birmingham (Alabama), the engine is not driven by children in need, but by parents who want to have children.

The demand for children is indeed high. According to the Growing Up Agency, which monitors adoptions at Flemish level, as of mid-June 2023, a total of 1,304 prospective parents were in the adoption procedure - domestic and foreign adoptions added up. But with only 29 international and 17 domestic adoptions in 2022, the waiting list is shrinking very slowly, even though the waiting time becomes shorter when aspirants are open to children with 'special needs' and many aspirants drop out during the process. The tension between the number of adoptable children and the number of prospective parents puts enormous pressure on adoption services to find children, says Yung Fierens, chairman of Critical Adoptees Front Europe (CAFE). 'Only when the waiting lists empty will the system be closed down.'

However, within Flanders there are many children who hope for a home: approximately 1,000 children are waiting for a foster family. "The need for prospective foster families remains high," says Jan Brocatus of Pleegzorg Vlaanderen. Nowadays, in adoption, a lot of attention is paid to the place of the first parents, but foster care requires a different attitude than adoption, Brocatus realizes. 'With foster care you must be open to shared parenting, and you must be aware of the temporary nature of care.' These can be high barriers for prospective adoptive parents, for whom adoption is often a way out of fertility problems.

Adoption is also an important option for LGBTQIA+ parents, but it is not self-evident. Most sending countries only allow adoption by married heterosexual couples, and this is often subject to a number of conditions, from a minimum income to a maximum BMI score. Moreover, two-thirds of the children given up by sending countries for adoption to Flanders are 'special needs' children. In addition to older children and brothers or sisters, this concerns children with health problems or a disability.

Roots travel

What is striking: adoptive parents are strongly represented within adoption services, in contrast to adoptees. And there is also a strong link between policy and services. Katrien Schryvers (CD&V) even combined the chairmanship of Ray of Hope for a time with a position in the Welfare Committee of the Flemish Parliament. Do adoptive parents find it easier to gain access to the policy than adoptees?

Some adoptees do feel unequally treated. "If we adopt in the interests of the children, then we must also serve those interests when they are adults," says Anouk Torbeyns, who was adopted from India. She points to the lack of financial support for roots trips – trips that adoptees make to their country of origin. Adoptive parents, on the other hand, have been entitled to a tax reduction of 20 percent since 2019, with a maximum of 6,000 euros, for costs they incur during the adoption procedure. According to the Growing Up Agency, they pay a total of at least 10,000 euros to adopt a child, of which a maximum of 3,000 euros to an adoption service. In particular, the amount that parents pay to the sending countries varies enormously: between 7,000 and 15,000 euros. 'The question must be asked: should prospective parents bear that entirely, or should society support it?' prospective parent Sébastien* wonders.

Of course, one suffering does not cancel out the other. 'I didn't want to be adopted, I thought as a child,' says Alima*. "I didn't believe my daddy had given me up either, I thought they had taken me from him." She was adopted from Ethiopia when she was five. Four years later she was admitted to child psychiatry for a year and a half with an attachment disorder. And she also sees difficulties among friends. 'Everyone I know who was adopted as a toddler or preschooler has some sort of mental issue.'

Adoptees who raise such issues often feel like they are not being heard. "What I have the most difficulty with is that people expect me to be very grateful," says Alima. 'You have to be happy with where you end up. You should forget everything else.' Adopted Altaseb Van den Broeck does not have the compelling feeling that he should be grateful, but he understands it. "It seems like you're indebted to your parents." Moreover, the trauma of an adoption goes further than just the adopted person, Danai Deblaere testifies. Her mother was adopted from India in the 1970s. Today, as a second-generation Belgian, she asks herself all kinds of questions about her roots. 'You deprive someone of an identity.'

Malpractice

"All that fraud and misery that comes with intercountry adoption is no longer possible," says Deblaere. 'And all this to make your wish to have children come true? Is that worth it?' It's a tricky point: can you ensure that adoptions are done correctly?

At the end of May, the media platform openDemocracy revealed large-scale fraud in the adoptions of Armenian children in Italy. Armenian mothers were told that their child had died, even though they had unknowingly given it up for adoption. The French-language public broadcaster RTBf recently revealed that Belgian adoptions from Congo are the result of child trafficking. Both cases took place between 2015 and 2018. Former CD&V minister Wivina Demeester, who later evaluated sending countries as chairman of the adoption service Ray of Hope, decided in 2016 that the risk of malpractice is too great. During her tenure at Ray of Hope, she saw a commercialization of adoption. "It has become big business for the countries of origin, unlike years ago," says Demeester. 'You always try to get the best possible insight into the situation in which children are adopted – or 'recruited'. And again and again you know that you are in a twilight zone.'

Erika van Beek, the current coordinator of Ray of Hope, also stated in parliament that offering complete certainty is never possible. According to Inge Demol of the Adoption Support Center, the expertise center that is responsible for the preparation of prospective parents and care for adoptive parents and adoptees, working with that uncertainty is the most difficult thing for her team.

To remove this uncertainty, the Hague Convention was concluded in 1993, with Belgium as a founding member. The core idea is: focus on the care and protection of the child in the sending country, so that adoption is only the very last safety net, explains Brussels family judge Kristel Verelst. But for this, receiving countries such as Belgium must mainly rely on the sending countries. "The number of malpractices has decreased due to increasing regulations, but the risk is ingrained in the system," says Professor Smolin. Fraud was found in adoptions from Armenia and Congo, even though both countries have signed the Treaty. 'It is a failed attempt to save international adoption. There is no monitoring body that checks whether countries comply with it.'

Yet the Treaty is often referred to as a guarantee against fraud. But today, thirty years after its conclusion, adoptions are still possible in Flanders from countries that did not sign it.

Extra money

There was already great criticism of intercountry adoption, but in 2017, then Minister of Welfare Jo Vandeurzen (CD&V) implemented the promise of the Flemish adoption official from 2014. He increases the total subsidy amount for the three adoption services together by 59 percent. Vandeurzen remains generous with the services later in his term of office: at the end of 2019, they together receive more than 1 million euros per year. At the same time, the number of adoptions continues to decline, to 29 in 2022. The Flemish government is therefore allocating more and more money for fewer and fewer children. In 2012, taxpayers paid 2,400 euros for an adopted child from abroad, but by 2022 this would have increased to 40,500 euros. Where does that money go?

"The subsidy system was indeed adjusted, with a stronger focus on aftercare," responsible minister Hilde Crevits (CD&V) told Knack . Only: in 2017, when the subsidy increase was granted, this was not yet the case. At the time, the adoption services were mainly responsible for facilitating new adoptions and limited aftercare, not for psychological guidance and roots questions in the longer term. Since 2019, they have had more extensive care tasks. But in 2021, an expert panel put together on behalf of the Flemish government indicated that the focus on aftercare can actually be done budget-neutrally through a shift in resources.

In contrast to the subsidies for adoption services, the basic subsidies for the Adoption Support Center and the Ancestry Center, where adoptees can go with their search questions, remained constant. At the beginning of 2023, both received a project subsidy of 200,000 euros to expand their operations, but that is also not enough to answer all applications to the Ancestry Center. 52 files of intercountry adoptees could not yet be opened due to a lack of staff. And the Adoption Support Center can also use extra resources to better support adoptees.

New sending countries

Part of the extra money will be spent on the search for new sending countries. Since 2013, subsidies from adoption services are no longer dependent on the number of adoptions, but there are still other incentives for the services to realize more adoptions. This way they receive extra subsidy per country with which they start a collaboration. Since 2014, that amount has been an average of 87,000 euros extra per year.

This goes against the expert panel's recommendation not to actively look for adoptable children. Minister Crevits indicates that the measure will be overhauled as quickly as possible: 'We want to get rid of that, because it increases the pressure. It should not be about more-more-more adoption, but better-better-better.'

Bart Lagae's journey as an aspiring parent lasted seven years. He personally felt the impact of the subsidy scheme. “The focus was sometimes more on finding new countries than on offering stable partnerships,” says Lagae. 'That creates a proliferation of channels. Parents throw themselves into adventures without really knowing what they are getting into.' No fewer than seven of the seventeen countries with which Flanders has an agreement are still in a pilot phase. Possibilities are being investigated for a dozen other countries.

But that's not the only thing the government money goes to. When studying the annual accounts of adoption services, we see striking shifts after the increase in subsidies. Het Kleine Mirakel announced at the general meeting in 2018 that the service is once again financially healthy, partly thanks to increased subsidies from the Growing Up Agency. The other services were also able to reverse their negative results. Ray of Hope went from -67,000 euros in 2016 to +55,000 euros in 2018. At FIAC the difference is more modest: from -8,000 euros in 2016 to +18,000 euros in 2018.

In short, the increase in Flemish subsidies saved the three adoption services from financial quicksand.

What now?

In 2019, Minister Vandeurzen announced a unification of the three adoption services. However, the deadline for this was postponed by six months at the end of 2022. Last month, FIAC and Ray of Hope submitted an application together, under the name VIA. The Little Miracle presented itself as a separate candidate. The Growing Up Agency made the decision last Monday. From July 1, Het Kleine Mirakel will make a new start as the only intercountry adoption service.

In addition to the unification, a screening of the sending countries is also underway. From which countries will Flanders adopt in the future? "The question creates uncertainty and fear among adoptive parents," says Veerle Theuninck, who, as a psychologist, helped assess the suitability of prospective parents. So far, five of the twenty countries have been screened. It is striking that a country like Colombia was given the green light in Flanders, but was put on the red list in the Netherlands. How is it possible that a screening in two countries has a different outcome?

Does intercountry adoption still have a future? After the summer recess, Minister Crevits will go to the government with a new adoption decree, which should come into effect at the end of this year. 'We need to reverse the logic: don't look for a child for a family, but a family for a child.'

Yet no one seems to want to discuss the elephant in the room: given the abuses and possible psychological consequences for adoptees, shouldn't intercountry adoption simply be abolished?

'The government's starting point has always been a future for intercountry adoption, and not to stop adoption,' says doctoral researcher Atamhi Cawayu (UGent), who was on the expert panel. For the interest group CAFE, intercountry adoption must be stopped and we must focus on family support and the development of youth care in sending countries.

But opinions are divided. According to some adoptees, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. “Adoption is the best thing that has happened to me,” says Altaseb Van den Broeck. "But I really look at it as a business model."

Hilde Crevits is clear: 'For the Flemish government, intercountry adoption has a future. We want to continue to do that, but with a different philosophy and with one service.'

According to former Ray of Hope director Wivina Demeester, it is not a matter of conviction. "No one in government has the courage to stop this."

THE SECTOR REACTS

Hilde Crevits, Minister of Welfare

'Trends have changed in recent years. The countries of origin, often due to their improved economic situation, are increasingly looking for solutions in their own country. As a result, not only does their demand decrease, it also changes - for example, towards more adoption of children who need a lot of care. The Flemish Center for Adoption (VCA) was aware that this evolution entailed financial challenges for the adoption services, and consulted with the three adoption services. It looked at how adoption services can work together to work more cost-efficiently when setting up new partnerships, placing children with a specific profile, etc.'

Flemish Center for Adoption

'The basic principle is that parents are sought for a child, and not the other way around.

Subsidies have been increased so that the income from adoption services no longer depends on the number of adoptions.

Green or red light when screening countries is not about quality or transparency, but about the specific profile of children who are seen as adoptable by Colombia - which Belgium responds to and the Netherlands does not. The screening is therefore not about 'is it kosher there?', it is about 'are we able to accommodate those children with very specific care needs?' Colombia and Portugal (the countries that receive a different assessment in the Netherlands, ed.) are highly regarded in terms of compliance with the Hague Convention. Belgium is indeed very careful with screening.'

Ray of Hope

'The adoption service was never financially threatened in its operation. The previous financing system for services sometimes caused fluctuations in income, as a result of which the boards had to intervene with due diligence in the operation.

Adoptive parents are a small minority among employees and board members. Experiential expertise is an added value, both for an adopted person and for an adoptive parent. It is never about people who are still in the adoption process.'

The Little Miracle

'The Little Miracle has not had financial difficulties at any time since its inception in 2006. An additional budget has been provided since 2017. This was necessary to provide extra (including psychological) care and guidance to families before and especially after placement.

Collaboration with new channels requires investments. To this end, we have so far received a modest amount to cover part of the costs, but that is only a fraction of the actual investments in exploring new collaborations.

The money that prospective parents pay to countries of origin is spent on legalizations, translations of documents, on-site guidance, local interpreters and lawyers, etc.'