Cautious joy about making adoptions possible again

Adoption from abroad Adoptions from abroad were abruptly stopped in February 2021, but now seem to be possible again. There are still many questions from adoption agencies and adoptive parents.

Adoption agencies and adoptive parents are delighted that intercountry adoptions are once again possible. They are curious about the exact details of the new system.

They say that in a response to the plan leaked through the AD on Friday morning that all intercountry adoptions should go through a government agency in the future. The role of the intermediary agencies would then be reduced. The cabinet will decide on Friday afternoon on the proposal from Minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection, D66), the official announcement will follow on Monday. The plan will then also be discussed with the organizations involved and more details should become clear.

Adoptions from abroad were abruptly stopped in February 2021 after an advice from the Intercountry Adoption Investigation Committee led by Tjibbe Joustra – ongoing adoptions could be completed. The commission presented an investigation into adoption abuses from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka in the years 1967 to 1998. Evidence was found of gross abuses, such as child trafficking, falsification of documents and transferring children to other countries under false pretenses. The Netherlands. The committee also 'screened' eighteen other countries and detected signals of the same abuses, including signals from after 1998.

Stories about abuses

In the years prior to the investigation, more and more stories had come out about abuses: about forged signatures, about biological mothers being forced to give up their child or about adoptive parents being lied to that their adopted child was orphaned.

Adoption agencies at the time were outraged by the report, because they believed the abuses happened years ago. According to the adoption agencies, strict supervision has been in place for years and adoptions are carefully supervised. “It is bizarre if a child without parents has to grow up in an orphanage because the Dutch government says: 'you are not welcome because we are afraid of possible abuse'”, says Sanne Buursink on behalf of the four mediation agencies that supervise foreign adoptions.

Buursink says he is happy that the Netherlands wants to take responsibility for children abroad that the parents cannot, do not want or are not allowed to care for. Sander Vlek, chairman of the National Association of Adoptive Parents (LAVA), is, like Buursink, especially curious about the precise details of the new system. Vlek: “Every intercountry adoption was checked by officials from the Ministry of Justice. In addition, future adoptive parents were screened by the Child Protection Board. So the state was already closely involved.”

Not waiting

Vlek hopes that the stop on intercountry adoptions will be lifted immediately and that there will be no need to wait for a new government organization to be set up. “The procedure is long. If we have to wait another two years, all the experts will have changed their minds and the networks will have dried up. Countries from which Dutch people adopted children already have contacts with other countries.”

He still has something to say: “Of course we have to prevent abuses. But we must also prevent children from growing up in orphanages when parents are available for them. Because that is also very harmful.”

The Ministry of Justice does not want to respond substantively until Minister Weerwind's plan is public.

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