Karen wants the temporary adoption stop to be lifted

The temporary stop on foreign adoptions must be given up immediately. To that end, Karen Gregory, mother of two adopted children herself, wrote an open letter to outgoing minister Sander Dekker. 'There is so much more transparency now than back then', she says in the section Where is Waldy? in News and Co.

International adoptions have been suspended since the beginning of this year , in response to the report by the Joustra Committee on the Dutch adoption culture and the role of the government. According to the committee, the Netherlands has been too passive in the adoption processes in the past. The supervision would have been inadequate and no action was taken in the event of abuses that came to light. This concerns abuse of poverty, falsification of documents or biological parents who have had to give up their child under duress or for payment.

She does not deny that there have been abuses. 'Too many people looked away at the time and that is disgusting,' says Gregory. Nevertheless, she pleads for reversing the adoption ban. 'The adoption process now can no longer be compared with the process of thirty or forty years ago.' According to her, there are now many more rules, information courses and checks. Adoptive parents are now also monitored for a while by the Child Care and Protection Board.

Transparency

She herself is the mother of two adopted children from the United States. Her children's biological parents remain involved and there is a lot of transparency. When children are orphaned or abandoned, this transparency is not always self-evident. Nevertheless, Gregory thinks that adoption should continue here too. "It is the best child protection measure there is," says Say. 'Growing up in a children's home or foster care system is in most cases a worse option for children.'

The wrongs of the time should not be projected on the wrongs of today. The people responsible for the abuses can most likely no longer be prosecuted, although she thinks they should. Tackling the problem at home is also not an option, she says: "It would be very arrogant to think that we can do that."

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