'I NO LONGER BELIEVE THE ROMANTIC STORY ABOUT MY ADOPTION'
Journalists Cindy Huijgen and Ruth van der Kolk were babies in the same Chinese children's home and were adopted by Dutch parents. They write to each other about how their fairytale image changed from adoption: "The story I was told is now unsettled."
Journalists Cindy Huijgen (29) and Ruth van der Kolk (27) were born in China and ended up in the same children's home as babies. In the 1990s they both ended up in the Netherlands via adoption. Years later, the women go in search of their roots separately. The romantic image that they would have been rescued from a hopeless situation does not last. An exchange of letters.
CINDY HUIJGEN: 'MY LIFE IN CHINA HAD NOT BEEN HOPELESS'
Cindy Huijgen was adopted from China in 1993 and grew up in a village close to Rotterdam. Since 2019 she has lived in Beijing, where she works as a correspondent for De Telegraaf, among others .
Hi Ruth,
My phone exploded when it became known that the Netherlands is temporarily stopping the adoption of children from abroad. The report of the committee led by Tjibbe Joustra also made me think.
As a child, I struggled with the question of why I had been given a better life, while other Chinese foundlings languished somewhere. I think my struggle had to do with the fairytale story I've always been told: 'If you had stayed in China, you probably wouldn't have survived. Your biological parents gave you up out of love, so that you could have a better life. '
As I got older, I started to question that story. In the Netherlands, China is seen as a poor and foreign country, from which children must be rescued through adoption. That is not the image I have of China, now that I work there as a journalist and speak to many people. Many Chinese of my generation - in their thirties - experience more social pressure to live the perfect life than their peers in the Netherlands, with the right job and a traditional family. But that my life would have been hopeless if a Chinese family had adopted me, I don't believe that.
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OTHER ADOPTEES LEARNED THAT THEIR BIOLOGICAL PARENTS WEREN'T POOR RICE FARMERS AT ALL
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When I was 12, my adoptive parents took me to China for the first time. I loved that I could disappear into the crowd. In the Netherlands, classmates and fellow villagers constantly reminded me that I looked different. During that trip, I decided that one day I would live in China. Every choice I made afterwards, I made with that goal in mind. I studied Sinology in Leiden and after a master's in Journalism and a master's in Chinese in 2019, I grabbed the opportunity to emigrate to Beijing for De Telegraaf .
Cindy Children's Home
Cindy at the age of twelve in a Chinese children's home.
Private image
I never looked for my biological parents, but I did reach out to other adoptees. In their stories I recognized problems that I am struggling with myself: I find it difficult to build a romantic relationship because I am afraid of being abandoned. I also notice that I never really feel at home anywhere - neither in the Netherlands nor in China.
For the first time, I also heard stories from adoptees who found out that their biological parents were not poor rice farmers at all (as is often told in the fairytale story). I even heard that someone's biological mother had been kidnapped and raped to meet the adoption demand from Western countries.
The temporary stop on intercountry adoptions and the apologies of Minister Dekker (see box, ed.) Are, in my opinion, a gesture towards all lives and families that have been destroyed by adoption. But I see this as a first step, because it does not really help victims.
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THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD FINANCIALLY SUPPORT ADOPTEES IN THEIR SEARCH
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A recent government Q&A on adoption does not contain information that concerns adoptees themselves, such as: what is the Dutch government going to do specifically for this group? I think there should be follow-up care for every adopted person. The report of the Joustra Committee contains examples of people who went in search of their biological parents and were prevented by the government from viewing their file. They should not be opposed in their search, but rather supported, for example financially.
Temporary stop international adoptions
For years, the Dutch government ignored abuses in intercountry adoptions. A commission of inquiry discovered, among other things, that documents had been tampered with on a large scale, that children had been trafficked and that so-called 'baby farms' had been established: an Indonesian woman kept eighteen babies in the attic, which she sold for 1000 guilders per child. The Dutch government ignored reports of wrongdoing and placed the responsibility with authorities abroad.
On behalf of the cabinet, Minister Sander Dekker (Legal Protection, VVD) apologized to adopted people at the beginning of February for the government's lax attitude. The idea that adoption is a good deed was, according to Dekker, an explanation for the government looking away, but not a justification. The government suspended immediately all new international adoptions temporarily . That was a recommendation from the committee. Procedures that have already been initiated may be completed.
I increasingly tell the media how I experience my adoption story. For example, after the report of the Joustra committee was published, I wrote a column for De Telegraaf . I find myself choosing my words carefully: I don't want to step on their toes to friends, family, and other adoptees. Yes, I am critical of intercountry adoption and I see all kinds of problems in the system, but I am also very grateful for the opportunities that have been offered to me. I know that my adoptive parents did not adopt me out of the "moral duty" to save a child from a poverty-stricken existence; my mother could not have children. And don't forget: many adoptive parents are also victims. Many of them were unaware of the abuses and blindly relied on the system.
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SOME HAVE BEEN SAVED FROM A HOPELESS LIFE, OTHERS HAD BEEN BETTER OFF IN THEIR NATIVE COUNTRY
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But it bothers me that the interests of those prospective parents always remain at the center of the discussion. And that I get the feeling that I should be for or against intercountry adoption. I experience little room for different (and changing) experiences. Just because I'm happy with my adoption right now doesn't mean I always will be. I also cannot speak for others. Some adoptees have actually been rescued from a hopeless life, others would have been better off in their native country, with an adoptive family with the same culture and language.
How do you think about this?
Greetings from Beijing,
Cindy
RUTH VAN DER KOLK: 'THAT I HAD TO BE GRATEFUL HAD A LOT OF IMPACT ON ME'
Ruth van der Kolk was adopted from China in 1994 and grew up in the east of the Netherlands. She now works as a foreign editor at Nederlands Dagblad.
Hi Cindy,
I recognize the fairytale story you mention. I don't know how my adoption went from A to Z. What I do know is that as a baby I ended up in an overcrowded children's home - the same home you were in. I have always been told that children there died, were left with no future prospects or were adopted by people from abroad. If those are the options, then I can understand that intercountry adoption seemed like the best choice back then.
For a long time I believed in the romantic story of my past: I would have been an abandoned child of poor rural parents who wanted the best for me. But I miss crucial information, so that my past cannot be fully traced and I may never know whether my biological parents really wanted to give me up. That makes it difficult to say what I think about my adoption. It is nice that I ended up in a loving family, but it does not alter the pain of being separated from my biological parents.
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CHINA WAS STRUGGLING WITH OVERCROWDED HOMES, THERE WAS SUPPLY AND DEMAND. IT SEEMED LIKE A WIN-WIN SITUATION
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At the end of my puberty this started to gnaw at me. I kept asking my family, the adoption agency, and other parties involved in my adoption, and found that the story I had been told was unfounded. It was mainly guesswork based on the situation in China at the time, such as the one-child policy and the pressure on parents to have a boy.
Two years ago I started to study the adoption system. In the Netherlands and China I spoke with as many people and organizations as possible who were involved in my adoption. I got in touch with many other adoptees and found that the adoption system was anything but watertight - and still isn't.
The agency involved in my own adoption said it relied on mediators abroad, while there was little supervision. It could not guarantee that everything had gone smoothly. That price the agency was willing to pay for "saving orphans" and "helping parents to have children" (well-intentioned but naive ideas about adoption). Money and political interests also played a major role: China was struggling with overcrowded homes. There was supply and demand. It seemed like a win-win situation.
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THE INTERESTS OF PROSPECTIVE PARENTS STILL OUTWEIGH THOSE OF ADOPTEES
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Minister Dekker's apologies come across as empty words to me. What should adoptees do with apologies, if Dekker also claims that he cannot make it to intended parents to think about an alternative adoption system for years? Such a statement shows that the interests of prospective parents still outweigh those of adoptees - even after demonstrating large-scale adoption abuses.
I have a less nuanced opinion than you about the intercountry adoption system. We should not judge a system solely on the basis of our own experiences, which happen to have turned out relatively well. Adoption is part of a political policy that changes lives dramatically. It is not without reason from the report of the Joustra Committee that the structural abuses violate children's rights.
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ON THE ONE HAND, I WANTED TO BE LOYAL TO MY PARENTS, ON THE OTHER I FELT THAT BEING GRATEFUL WAS UNJUST
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Partly for this reason, I think that definitively stopping intercountry adoption is the only right choice. In my opinion it is best for a child to grow up with their own family. If that is not possible, then domestic adoption is a last resort, so that children stay at least in their native country, as close to their own roots as possible.
We really need to get rid of the idea of ??being grateful as an adoptee. As a child such statements had a great impact on me. On the one hand I wanted to be loyal to my parents, on the other hand I thought this idea was unfair. The report of the Joustra Committee therefore shows that idealistic ideas such as 'adoption is doing good' are so deeply rooted in politics and society that abuses were accepted for decades.
I agree with you that there is not much room for nuanced opinions about adoption. Because people with strong opinions receive the most attention, it does indeed seem that there are only 'advocates' and 'opponents' of adoption. The media also paint a one-sided picture: the TV program Spoorloos (on TV since 1990) used to be my only frame of reference. That program creates the image that all adoptees would have the need to look for their roots.
I still notice that people think from this simplified framework. This creates unjustified expectations. But for me, adoption is and will remain a complex theme that keeps recurring in different ways in different phases of my life. Like you, I do not rule out that how I think about my own adoption will change in the future. I would like more room for that in the public discussion.
Ruth
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JYOTI WAS ILLEGALLY ADOPTED: 'MY ENTIRE FILE IS MADE UP'
The Dutch government ignored gross abuses in adoptions from abroad.
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ILLEGAL ADOPTION IN THE NETHERLANDS
Since the 1970s, children worldwide have been stolen from their mothers, only to end up with false identity papers in the Netherlands, among others.