Child Protective Services plays a significant role in adoptions. Adoptee Jessica Bijvang (54) is now denouncing that role. "It's a disgrace what happened to me. Nobody cared about me."

Baby Jessica is tien dagen oud als haar moeder haar achterlaat bij de Paula Stichting in Utrecht. Een knap kindje, met een snoezig gezichtje. Het is december 1965, een dag voor Oudejaarsavond, als de 23-jarige jonge vrouw de deur van het tehuis voor ongehuwde moeders achter zich dicht trekt. Haar dochter, denkt ze, zal opgroeien in een liefdevol gezin.

Het is anders gelopen voor de nu 54-jarige Jessica Bijvang. “Ik ben mijn hele leven onzichtbaar geweest”, zegt ze. Voor haar op tafel ligt een dik dossier met brieven van en naar de Kinderbescherming, papieren over haar tijd bij de Paula Stichting en de zoektocht naar haar biologische vader. De schuld en de schaamte over een jeugd in een gewelddadig en disfunctioneel gezin hebben lang op haar gedrukt. Alle ‘vormen van ellende’, zegt ze, is ze doorgegaan tijdens het verwerkingsproces. “Ik heb ontzettend hard gewerkt. Nu kan ik zeggen dat ik een goed leven heb.”

Niet eerder heeft ze willen vertellen hoe haar jeugd eruit zag, wat er gebeurde nadat de Kinderbescherming verantwoordelijk werd voor haar. Weer dat schuldgevoel en de schaamte waarover niet alleen ouders spreken die afstand hebben gedaan, maar ook kinderen die zijn afgestaan. Maar nu is het tijd. “Het is een schande wat er met mij is gebeurd. Niemand heeft zich om mij bekommerd.” Haar biologische moeder maakt ze geen verwijten en ook voor haar pleegouders voelt ze na al die jaren een zekere compassie. Maar de Kinderbescherming had haar moeten beschermen. En die heeft dat niet gedaan.

Kinderen willen staat aanklagen om hun adoptie

In the 1960s, then 22-year-old Trudy Gertsen gave up her son against her will. Today, she holds the State responsible.

The first big blow came in November 1967. Trudy Gertsen (21) was five months pregnant and unmarried. She had completed her nursing training without telling anyone about her pregnancy. If the nuns with whom the women lived during nursing training had known, she would have been kicked out immediately. She has no doubts about that.

Now she's back with her parents, fully expecting to give birth there. After that, she'll look for a job and a home to raise her son. Her boyfriend, the baby's father, turns out to have another girl. So be it, she thinks, I'll do it alone.

But instead, her mother takes her out for a walk and tells her she has to give up the child. Trudy is not welcome in her childhood home.

Trudy Scheele-Gertsen, now 73, falls silent as she recounts that walk, taking a sip of water. "And home was quite a big house. But it wasn't possible. It was impossible." "I've arranged something for you," her mother said on that autumn day, more than fifty years ago. She sent her daughter to the Paula Foundation in Oosterbeek, a home for unwed mothers.

Former nuns Sister Chantal (92) and Sister Angeli (81) worked at the Paulastichting in Oosterbeek, a home for unmarried mothers, in the late 1960s. Many of these mothers gave up their children. Like Ellen van Ree (69), who carried this trauma with her for the rest of her life. Fifty years later, she visits the nuns. How do they look back on what happened in their home?

This article was written byJenda Terpstra and Petra Vissers Published on June 13, 2020, 1:00 AM

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Ellen van Ree was sixteen years old and a "child of her time, with trendy clothes and spiky blond hair" when she became pregnant in 1967. Her parents refused to hear of it and  sent her to the Paula Foundation  in Oosterbeek. There, Ellen was housed, along with about 29 other unmarried girls, waiting to give birth. Half of them gave up their child for adoption. Ellen's parents also refused to let her keep it.

Mother and child belong together was the creed in 1956. But after the introduction of the adoption law, that principle disappeared. How could it be that thousands of women were separated from their children in ten years? 

It's August 1967, and in Oosterbeek, nestled in the green space on Nico Bovenweg, the new building of the Paula Foundation is opened. Here, in the coming years, hundreds of unmarried mothers will give birth, and just as many babies will spend their first months, or even years. The modern, new building is opened by psychiatrist Gribling.

His speech breathes a new era. In the past, he says, the guiding principle was: mother and child belong together. But "you will be aware," he continues, "that this principle has been completely abandoned, especially in the last ten years, for reasons so obvious that we can only wonder about its application now."

The adoption law has been in effect for eleven years, since 1956. That law was inspired by the desire of foster parents to also obtain legal parenthood over their foster children. At the time, this involved small numbers. The motto at the time was: mothers, no matter how disabled, must care for their babies. A principle that now holds true again.

The adoption law seems to have unintentionally created its own dynamic

In the years following the introduction of the adoption law, mothers and children were crushed in a chaotic and opaque system. The life story of Hans van Rijssel (64) illustrates the consequences of this lack of oversight. "Child Protection Services made me swim. And I'm still swimming."

After his mother,  under pressure from her parents, gave up her son , Hans was initially placed in the "De Kloek" home in Leusden after his birth. After five months, he moved to "Zonnestraal" in Bilthoven, and then lived for more than two years in "Huize Aldegonde." "I was brought in there by the social worker," he recalls. "I stood in that large hall, I turned around, and I was alone. And that's how I've felt ever since."

At Huize Aldegonde , his biological mother and the man she's about to marry try to pick him up. At the home's door, the couple learns that Hans is already living with a family. What they don't know is that he had been taken away just five days earlier.  Read more about what happened here.

Van Rijssel has nothing good to say about the family he ends up with. Officially, he lived there from age 3 to 18, but in reality, he only spent three and a half years under their roof. The boy was sent to various homes throughout his childhood because he allegedly had behavioral problems. "I was stupid, always did everything wrong," he says. Throughout that time, he was under the guardianship of the Utrecht Reformed Children's Association. His foster parents never adopted him because, according to his file, "they didn't dare accept all the consequences."

At the same time that pressure on unmarried women to relinquish their babies is mounting, the question of who is responsible for the thousands of children relinquished is also becoming increasingly unclear. Mothers and children are being crushed in an opaque and chaotic system.

Gertha stands at the door of the Aldegonde orphanage in Amersfoort. It's February 23, 1960, a cold and cloudy day. Gertha's then three-year-old son, Hans, lives in the stately orphanage. She was unmarried when she had him, but she gave him up under pressure from her parents.

She's picking up her son today, she thinks. She has an appointment with the Utrecht Child Protection Council: once married, she can pick up her child. The wedding is in a few days. She's getting married, and her future husband, Hans, acknowledged his paternity on February 11th. The child is legally his son; they'll take him home together.

Things take a different turn. Gertha is told at Aldegonde's door that Hans has already gone to foster care. She can't take him with her and isn't told where he is.

After their unmarried mothers left, children sometimes spent years in the Paula Foundation transition home. There, toddlers literally became ill from the lack of attention.

This article was written byPetra VissersPublished on June 8, 2020, 7:13 AM

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"I would like to draw your attention to the minor Emmy," writes Frans Josso, psychologist at the Paula Foundation, in chicken-wristed handwriting on blue lined paper. It is the winter of 1968 in Oosterbeek, three days after Sinterklaas. Outside, it is freezing, and a bitter wind blows across the green estate where the home for unmarried mothers stands.

It starts with a relatively innocent question. Three years ago, a cousin of Liesbeth Struijcken (56) asked on Facebook whether their last name is now spelled with an 'ij' or a 'y'. What difference does it make, she thinks. But she still decides to dive into the trunk in the basement containing all her adoption papers. Surely the correct spelling of their last name is in there, she reasons.

Once in her basement, she feels dizzy as she realizes she'd never really looked at the pile of papers before her. Struijcken is adopted; she discovered this by accident at age nine, during a vaccination at school and a name she hadn't known was read aloud. It turned out that the name she hadn't known was hers.

For the first time, she now sees two documents in the basement that she had always overlooked: one in which the Breda Child Protection Council informs her parents that they can have their adopted daughter's personal record rewritten, omitting all information relating to her adoption. The second letter confirms that her information has indeed been destroyed, with the authorization of the Minister of the Interior.

Struijcken is stunned. “I felt utterly betrayed. That identity card is much more than a simple card. It symbolizes that entire adoption history. Your identity card tells you who you are. That's true. Not for me.” Until 1994, the Dutch government kept information about its residents on identity cards; now all that data is stored in the Personal Records Database. 

Personal identity cards of adopted children were permitted to be destroyed after a 1970 ruling by the Council of State. At the request of adoptive parents, the Council ruled that adopted children were entitled to a new personal identity card, on which their biological parents were no longer listed.

A still from "The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger" (2010), Jane Jin Kaisen & Guston Sondin-Kung

Conference info

Co-organizers: Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University & Center for Korean Studies, University of Tübingen

Date: 7-8 May, 2026

Background: After decades of research output, it is well established that transnational adoptees—i.e., individuals who are placed for adoption outside their country of birth—exhibit an increased risk of various negative mental health outcomes. Even so, there is a lack of suggestions for preventive measures or treatment interventions targeting the transnational adoptee population in the literature.

Objective: To explore experiences, opinions, and needs among adult transnational adoptees in Sweden concerning healthcare in general and mental healthcare in particular.

Methods: Sixty-six adult transnational adoptees residing in Sweden, born in 15 different non-European countries, were recruited for individual in-depth interviews about their experiences and opinions regarding psychosocial support and healthcare. The interview data were analyzed employing a codebook thematic analysis approach.

Results: Three overarching themes were identified: (a) barriers to adequate treatment, (b) helpful resources in dealing with health-related issues, and (c) health-related needs and suggestions for the development of adequate support. Identified barriers include a lack of insight into and interest in adoptee health, colorblindness and unwillingness to address racism, expectations of gratitude, steep financial costs, lack of support from adoptive parents, and mistrust of support structures that involve adoptive parents or adoption organizations. Participants also describe helpful resources, such as the community of fellow transnational adoptees. Health-related needs and suggestions include more well-defined and easily accessible structures of support, improved knowledge and competence, a broader psychotherapeutic repertoire that better addresses adoption-related themes, improved support in situations that can be particularly stressful for adoptees (such as during pregnancy and as new parents), routine follow-up during childhood and adolescence, and education targeting adoptive parents. The need for greater attention to the well-being of children of transnational adoptees is also highlighted.

Implications: Based on these findings, a number of recommendations can be made. For example, knowledge about adoptee health should be strengthened, and psychotherapeutic competence in addressing issues related to racism should become a priority. After over 20 years of discussion, one or more national research and knowledge hubs on transnational adoption should be created. Moreover, economic resources should be made available to support transnational adoptees in accessing adequate treatment.