Jeunesse & Droit - JDJ - A parliamentary commission of inquiry is needed!

A parliamentary commission of inquiry is needed!

The dossier of this issue, exceptional for its scope and the variety of contributions, intends to review international adoption, by examining the evolution of international and national regulations and by pointing out abuses and shortcomings, sometimes of a criminal nature, that these procedures have known.

He also largely gives the floor to people who were adopted as children, to show how these shortcomings had long hidden, minimized, ignored consequences on their life, their development, the construction of their personality and their personal journey. . One of the most striking aspects is the construction of identity, in a context where most of the time, important components of this notion are non-existent, have disappeared, have been deliberately destroyed.

Hence, obviously, the focus on the search for origins which sometimes leads to the discovery of illegalities and criminal behavior. This research is therefore of capital, even vital, importance for adopted children, and requires support and accompaniment. We will see that this is also where the shoe pinches cruelly.

We cannot ignore the role of the actors involved in intercountry adoption. We thus explain the structures set up in Belgium and their missions (including the Higher Adoption Council, the COSA), evoke the local actors in the countries of origin of the children, and analyze more particularly the role of the intermediaries of the intercountry adoption, including accredited bodies, which had, and some of them still have, crushing responsibilities in criminal actions. We will not ignore the financial dimension that makes international adoption a lucrative business, which some consider more lucrative than drug trafficking!

After the findings, the analysis, the explanations, the time for evaluation, in-depth investigations and sanctions has come. The mere mention of the persistence of criminal activities despite the regulations and procedures put in place makes one shudder. Thus, the abduction and trafficking of children under the guise of intercountry adoption remains possible today despite warning signs and the awareness that this sector is undermined! It is still possible today to pick up a child in a remote village in the Congo, to promise an idyllic vacation to the parents, to kidnap, kidnap him and literally sell him to families in wealthy countries who for the most part ignore that they are accomplices, in spite of themselves, in criminal acts.

All without the control and monitoring mechanisms flinching!

The phenomenon is not limited to the French Community, far from it; Flanders has just carried out its investigation (entrusted to a college of experts) and wondered whether it should not decree a moratorium on international adoption for at least two years (we could not imagine being so close to the news by publishing this issue now). The Netherlands and Switzerland have had their parliamentary committee and are taking drastic measures. In France, a petition has collected more than 35,000 signatures calling for a parliamentary inquiry.

A resolution has been tabled in the Federal Parliament, which calls for the establishment of a parliamentary committee at this level as well. And in our opinion, there is no reason why the Wallonia-Brussels Federation should escape this examination of conscience. Not to hunt witches, it is the role of Justice. But to shed light on ancient facts which leave indelible traces today, and the most recent facts.

To understand why the regulations that have multiplied have not been able to stem this truly endemic problem. We know, the ground is politically undermined, since all the ministers who have managed the matter at least over the last three legislations (before the current one), have supported the adoption of children from the Congo, and that the administration, let -him the benefit of the doubt, was incomprehensible blindness.

We owe that to the child victims, to the adoptive families without forgetting the families of origin. And to make sure it can't happen again.

We therefore demand from the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry like what is requested from the federal government. The faster, the better!

Benoit Van Keirsbilck et Alexandra Roelandt

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