Acknowledge that our desire to form families has torn families apart elsewhere.

Acknowledge that our desire to form families has torn families apart elsewhere.

Adoptions

Reunions of adoptees are still presented as a fairy tale, even though it is well known how the adoption system has also torn families apart, observe Christel Don and Bina de Boer .

Christel Don

Published on October 9, 2026 at 16:30

Reading time: 5 minutes

Christel Don is a journalist and author of, among others, the book Afstandsmoeders.

This piece was created in collaboration with Bina de Boer, adoption coach and founder of advocacy group DNA India Adoptees International.

“A story like no one else has, a unique fairy tale you can hardly believe.” With those words, Eva Jinek introduced two women on her talk show on September 24 who were both adopted from India, each by a different Dutch family. They met as teenagers at a weekend for adoptees and immediately became friends. They recognized a lot in each other, and that turned out to be no coincidence: a recent DNA test revealed that they are full sisters. “What a wonderful story,” Jinek sighed after fifteen minutes. The audience applauded, and the next guest took their seats. All’s well that ends well, right?

The sense of happiness these sisters feel is easy to understand. When you grow up in an adoptive family without a single blood relative around you, it is quite something when you are suddenly reunited with a family member in whom you see yourself. Bina de Boer, adopted from India in 1979, also found her sister last year and knows that feeling. Yet, according to her, that happiness is only one of the many sides of such a story, something I also know from the many stories of birth mothers and relinquished children that I have recorded over the past few years. It was precisely those other sides that remained out of sight on Jinek: everything that preceded it, and the complex emotions that a reunion can also evoke, were not discussed that evening. But it should have been.

Widespread suffering

On November 1st, it will be seventy years since adoption became legally possible in the Netherlands, and we now know that the system has caused widespread suffering, with the consequences still reverberating. Birth mothers and adoptees have been telling their stories for decades, and investigations at home and abroad confirm their accounts. Last year, the De Winter Commission described in its report *Schade door schaamte* (Damage through Shame) how thousands of unmarried mothers in the Netherlands were forced to give up their newborn babies under immense pressure between 1956 and 1984, and the depth of the damage this caused to mothers and children. This summer, the Cabinet offered an apology for this. When the supply of Dutch children dried up, couples wishing to have children turned to foreign countries. In 2021, the Joustra Commission established that serious structural abuses, including child trafficking, took place in this process for decades, and that the government was aware of it. In Sweden, where many children from India also ended up, an investigative commission found proven cases of child trafficking in every decade between the 1970s and 2000. The same picture consistently emerges from this type of research: in the West, many people wanted a child, and they paid handsomely for it. Mothers, both here and abroad, were pressured, or were not consulted at all. Files were inaccurate, and authorities looked the other way or collaborated. Yet everyone seems to forget this as soon as two family members find each other again after years.

But: whoever is reunited is separated first. At one point, it was decided to place two children from the same parents with two different Dutch families, without those families knowing about each other. How could that happen? That question was not asked that evening on Eva's show. When it turned out that the sisters know little about their early years, Jinek remarked: "That does show how little information there is about the beginning of your lives." She left it at that, even though that lack of information reveals a great deal: about files that are incomplete, incorrect, or fraudulent, and about a system in which a child's origins apparently hardly mattered.

Fairy tale narrative

The program presented the story as exceptional, but now that more and more adoptees are sending their DNA to databases, these kinds of matches are also coming to light. For instance, it previously turned out that two women from China, one raised in Sweden and the other in the Netherlands, were full sisters. Three brothers from the same Haitian orphanage went to different families in Canada and the United States and only found each other again years later. In Quebec, a brother and sister from Macau discovered they were related after having been introduced to each other at university.

And sometimes DNA testing reveals the exact opposite: two women who were supposedly adopted as sisters in the late 1970s turned out not to be. Bina and I have been collecting and following these kinds of stories for a while, partly because Bina herself was reunited with her sister, who grew up in the Netherlands just like her, after a DNA test. The sisters consciously chose not to tell their story until they found a medium with room for a realistic narrative.

The fairytale narrative has a long history. In 1967, writer Jan de Hartog appealed to Mies Bouwman to adopt Korean children. "Even if you only save one," he said on national television. Together with images of his Korean daughters, that statement unleashed a veritable wave of adoptions: over a thousand people called afterward because they, too, wanted a Korean child. The Netherlands thus got the story it wanted to hear: a child in need, a Dutch family that saves the day, an outcome that makes everyone happy. Spoorloos retold that story for 35 years, until the broadcaster stopped last year because participants turned out to have been matched with the wrong families. The program disappeared, but the narrative remained: saccharine reunion stories still appear in newspapers, magazines, and talk shows. But what happens when the cameras are gone?

Once the rosy glow of the first few months has lifted, the lost years come into view. During the initial period, Bina and her sister consciously focused on their happiness. This was found in small things: cooking together, walking together, sitting next to each other under a blanket. Gradually, the questions arose, and the pain. They do not know exactly how old they are. Are they perhaps twins? Why were they separated and sent to the Netherlands shortly after one another; who decided that? Their files offer no answers. When the sisters said goodbye after being together for a few days, Bina experienced deep feelings of grief for weeks. As if her body suddenly remembered that she and her sister had been separated before. It is a complex form of grief that is difficult to comfort, because there are no shared memories to fall back on.

Reflecting on the other side

There is an additional factor that is rarely discussed. With adoption, the legal bond with the original family is severed. Consequently, the bond between siblings can also disappear on paper. In the Netherlands, this is virtually irreversible. If Bina and her sister, or the sisters at Jinek, want to have family ties legally restored, this cannot be done simply with a DNA test: legally speaking, they remain the children of their adoptive parents. This, too, fits the savior narrative. As if a child who has once been 'saved' would no longer have a reason to look back. The legislation revolved around the adoptive family that had to be formed and barely took into account another possibility: that an adopted child might later search for their family themselves, and wish to have that bond restored on paper as well.

We must raise awareness of all these kinds of issues and tell stories that do them justice. Everyone can take a step in this direction. To start with, a presenter could ask how it is possible that two sisters ended up in different families. An editor could find out through which orphanage and organization this happened and what is known about it, and invite the sisters back in a few years. Governments can ensure that adoptees who find their biological family can also have their family ties legally recognized. In the next reunion story, viewers and readers can also reflect on the pain of being cut off, and how it was caused. Stop the fairytale narrative, and acknowledge that our desire to form families has torn families apart elsewhere, with consequences that carry through to future generations. Even after a reunion, separation and adoption remain a lifelong process of joy and sorrow.