Adoptees: 'Adoption is not synonymous with child trafficking'

The government is opting for the easy way by temporarily stopping adoption, adoptees say. Attention must be paid to the positive stories and opportunities to change the system.

By stopping adoption, the government is avoiding its responsibility and going for 'the easy way'. That is the opinion of the Interlandelijk Geadoptijven (SiG) Foundation, which, according to board member Inez Teurlings, represents 'the silent mass of adoptees'. They believe that the debate about adoption is now being conducted too one-sidedly, because only the negative experiences are highlighted.

Not a synonym for child trafficking

“Adoption is not synonymous with child trafficking,” says Teurlings. “It is much more than that. It is logical that, after the report of the Joustra Committee, it is mainly the abuses that are central and that you hear the voices of the victims the loudest. But that is a one-sided story. Many adoptees are doing very well. ”

The SiG calls the temporary stop 'extremely undesirable' and 'unnecessarily harmful'. “To conclude without proper substantiation that it is not possible to develop a new adoption system is a shame for Dutch democracy,” the foundation said in its statement. She calls for an assessment per file whether there are sufficient grounds to continue the adoption.

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Teurlings finds it ironic that professor Beatrice de Graaf , one of the members of the Joustra committee, said that adoptees are not listened to enough. “The committee then recommends setting a stop , while their own research shows that 70 percent of adoptees think that adoption should continue. Then you don't listen to adoptees.

The adoption stop causes the younger generation of adoptees to stir: why is it all about abuses again, instead of about the positive experiences?

Portrait of Varsha Martens. © Patrick Post

Varsha Martens (31), adopted from India, health teacher

Varsha Martens became so sad, all those negative reports following the committee report, that she climbed into the pen. Could the newspapers not even write about adopted children who are just very happy in the Netherlands? Who grew up in a harmonious, loving and warm family? Who always felt and got space to talk about their adoption?

The children who came to the Netherlands in the late 1980s and 1990s were admitted to the families of more 'realistic' adoptive parents, Martens says, and that has made a difference, she says. “There was always an open discussion about adoption at home. My parents gave me all the information they had. ”

Adoptive parents are unfairly placed in a negative light by the report, she says. Her parents supported her when she was bullied again by her skin color and cheered when she left more or less impulsively for India seven years ago to volunteer at the orphanage where she spent the first eight months of her life.

Partly because of her own experience, she thinks adoption should continue. “A stop is too resolute a means. I think it is more sensible and fair to conduct research per country. You cannot say that adoption should stop because there have been abuses in the past. Also look at now. ”

For Martens it is comforting that she heard in the children's home in India that she was born out of love. Her parents were not married and when she was ten days old, her mother took her to the children's home. “If she hadn't, then the culture there would have been such that you could be torn apart. She gave me up because she wanted to get me to safety. She thought, if I don't give my daughter away now, I have no influence on a good future for her. I also want to give her back that security that she has given me by keeping my distance. If I were to visit her, her great life secret would be revealed. ”

Portrait of Jade Peters. © Patrick Post

Jade Peters (29), adopted from China, sustainability project manager

Where everyone blows out one more candle on a birthday than the year before, it was different for Jade Peters three years ago. She assumed she was 25, but when she met her birth parents in China , she turned out to be two years older. Earlier, after examination at the age of five, she had already turned six years old at one time.

“The children's home pretended I was younger than I was, probably because it would make it easier for me to be adopted. It is crazy that this is being cheated ”, says Peters. When she learned she was older, everything fell into place. She suddenly understood why she was so often called "wise" as a child, and why she felt different from her classmates in her teens.

These are the kinds of abuses that the report of the Joustra Committee reviews. Still, Peters thinks it is a pity that the emphasis is now on that. "The fact that there are scandals doesn't have to disqualify adoption," she says. “Here I was able to fully develop into who I am today, here I can express my passion for sustainability. I don't think I could have done that in China. ”

Because Peters met her family, she became even more convinced of this. Her father is deaf and mute, and her mother is seen in the village as an eccentric woman. Her siblings live separately from their spouse and children because they work in the city. “They are very strong, but it seems awful to me to only be able to see each other a few times a year,” she says.

According to her, an adoption stop ensures that an illegal adoption circuit is created and people make more use of surrogate mothers. “On the one hand you are going to put children on earth, because the desire to have children is so great, and on the other hand you have more children for whom there is no good care. This causes more pain. The committee now suggests that it is a hopeless task to make the procedures more transparent and cleaner, because then they have to interfere with governments and rights in other countries. I find that rather weak. ”

Portrait of Selina van der Meer © Bram Petraeus

Selina van der Meer (31), adopted from Taiwan, integration policy advisor

If her parents had not given her up, she might not have survived, Selina van der Meer thinks. “I was born three months premature, my chances of survival were a question mark. You did not have health insurance at the time and the costs of being in hospital for so long were too high for them. If my parents hadn't turned me over to the social services, I wouldn't have had a chance. ”

She now has good contact with them, she says. “I have always known about my background, which means that the identity issue, which is an issue for many adoptees, is not so important to me. I was hardly bullied in the Netherlands and that has not affected me. I have - whether that is character or not - a kind of Dutch common sense, with which I look at my origins: I am Dutch, but with strong roots. ”

In addition, Van der Meer has never heard of abuses in adoptions from Taiwan . “I was lucky that my file is correct,” she says. That is not self-evident, the report of the Joustra committee showed. “But those abuses are only one part of the story. I read in the newspaper that according to an adopted adoption always breaks something. Then you pretend it is a homogeneous group, but that is not the case. Many are happy to be here and are satisfied with their lives. ”

She thinks there is little nuance in the debate about adoption. “Adoption is a major child trafficking, it seems to the layman now. You mainly hear the supporters and opponents who are on a crusade - but there is so much in between. Adoption should continue to be possible for "children who do not have a chance to participate fully in their own country, I think, such as children with a cleft lip in China." She does think it is time to 'reconsider' the financial incentives that the system has. “It is strange that mediation organizations earn from it. That could be solved, for example, by introducing a fixed government subsidy for adoptions. ”

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