Remote mothers, mothers in the Netherlands who have had to give up their child for adoption, will not receive compensation from the government, the court ruled earlier this year. The coercion to adopt did not come from Child Protection, but from their own environment. In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice and Security is conducting a second investigation into exactly that question: whether or not state coercion? An initial investigation was aborted following complaints of bias and privacy violations. If the state does indeed appear to have made a mistake, the cabinet wants to prevent proceedings by settling. Journalist Marco de Vries went to the setting of his own adoption together with his mother of waiver Mieke and wrote this personal story about it.

I have two mothers. Which one is the real one? One, Jantina, believes that everything is controlled from above. The other, Mieke, prefers to steer himself. She can't handle navigation systems, usually has a road map unfolded on the passenger seat where I am now. This trip was my idea, but she immediately said yes, does not get talked about it on the way and therefore misses the right exit.

Then we take the next one and drive around. Her van thunders over the back roads of the Veluwe. The meadows are yellow and swampy in the November sun, the woods bare and grim. I grew up here, she is strange. I'm still looking for the address on my phone. Turn left in six kilometers, Google says. Destination reached.

Henk and Ineke turn out to live right behind my old primary school. Would I have ever seen them at that time? I may have played soccer with one of their many children. They are slightly older than Mieke, but just as vital. Ineke wears her long, white hair in two pigtails. She leans back in her large chair and looks at me searchingly.

I tell about myself. How it went. Still got there reasonably well. That I would like to meet them. My voice sometimes gets hoarse when it comes to that. An egg filled with mucus and snot that belches when asked difficult questions. But those aren't your real parents, are they? But where do you really come from? Well, from here apparently. I hatched with these people. And now they expect a thank you? No, I don't get that impression.

That's how you could describe a large part of my life in Amsterdam. From 1999 to 2018 I was allowed to live in Amsterdam. A life that I describe in retrospect as sex, drugs and rock and roll, especially the first ten years.

I was 27 years old when I moved from Deventer to Amsterdam, a wish I've had for a long time. Growing up as a homosexual in the Noordoostpolder was not for me. And I also noticed that I did not dare to be completely free in Deventer. After I 'come out' to my adoptive parents, everything made me feel like I had to move to the capital quickly because that's where it all happened, or so I thought at the time. And when the time came that I had found a place to live in Amsterdam, I couldn't believe my luck.

I came to live in the E-neighbourhood of Amsterdam Zuidoost, and found a job at KPN's call center. I combined that with an internship at the PAAZ in Zaandam. Working during the week and doing internships, going out on weekends. The latter in particular was a real revelation to me. Surrounded by other gay men for three days in a row, I loved it.

I soon found out that this life also had a downside. I also quickly spent the money I earned. Going to the Thermos sauna twice a week, and dancing every Friday and Saturday evening in the EXIT, is financially difficult. Going out every week also meant, for me at least, that I needed a lot of new clothes. And although I bought my clothes at H&M at the time, it went pretty fast. I thought it was also important to look good if you wanted to fit in.

Because my salary went through quickly, and my thoughts of 'new clothes and stuff count' became the only truth, I was short of money. It also didn't help that I bought a so-called comfort card and started buying things on installment. That only made the problem worse. In order to quickly get extra money, I decided to do escort work on the advice of an acquaintance. This turned out to be lucrative, there were many men who were willing to have sex with me, and who were willing to pay for it. In order to keep up with all this, I looked for help, which I found in the use of drugs. Taking ecstasy and snorting cocaine became part of my life over the weekend.

The Dutch adoption system has exploded. Earlier this year, the hard-hitting report by the Joustra Committee revealed that the Dutch government had known about abuses in adoptions since the 1960s – from child trafficking to child theft. An acute stop to intercountry adoption followed. A group of adoptive parents, and parties such as the Interlandelijke Adoptees Foundation, oppose the adoption ban and find the report too one-sided: after all, many adoptees in the Netherlands are doing very well, aren't they?

In De Balie, program maker and adoptee Parwin Mirrahimy talks with adoptees and experts: how should the Dutch adoption system proceed?

A pressing task that awaits the new cabinet is to adopt a definitive position on intercountry adoption. Is this possible again in the future? And if so, under what conditions? This evening we are anticipating this by talking to a number of adoptees from different parts of the world. We talk to them about their journey and about their experiences with the Dutch adoption policy. Together with experts, they discuss the pros and cons of the current adoption system.

Adoption brings positive change in many lives. But adoption in its current form too often leads to abuses. What needs to change in the adoption system in the future? And what should we keep?

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Consulted on 04-11-2022.

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Child welfare organization Wereldkinderen is shocked by the role it played in the much-discussed mismatches in Colombia, according to program maker Kees van der Spek. Like the TV program Spoorloos , the foundation worked for years with Edwin Vela, the Colombian fixer who became discredited after the broadcast of Scammers .

Friends Annick (37), An Sheela (42) and Sheela (41) lead different lives, but have one thing in common: all three are adopted from India. and they know what you struggle with if you don't know exactly where you come from. “Adoption is not always a fairy tale.”

Recognition and recognition

“Recognition and recognition. That's what I find with An Sheela and Sheela and all those other adopted kids from our Facebook community. For example, if I say, "I don't know exactly who I am," they know exactly what I mean. It is something that binds us. What do you run into if you don't know who your biological parents are? How does it feel when the start of your life is unclear and what you know about it may be based on lies? What are you struggling with then? They are things we discuss when we see each other on meeting days.” Annick is speaking. In 2008 she was only fifteen when she wanted to meet other adopted children. Together with her mother, she founded the Facebook group Adoptie Schakel, for children and their parents adopted from India. Initially a friendly group that exchanged messages and saw each other now and then, years later it became a more serious community. On which members post messages and photos, but which also organizes and undertakes all kinds of things.

The club got more and more members, from the Netherlands and Belgium. At a certain point, Annick was no longer able to manage everything on her own. In 2017 she asked An Sheela to help, a year later also Sheela. The three of them try to take the Facebook group to an even higher level. Together they organize meeting days and information evenings about DNA tests, for example. The three also fight against illegal adoption in their home country of Belgium. Despite their adoption stories being completely different, the trio feels connected to each other and to the members of their community.

Annick: “In the fourteen years that I have been working on this, the adopted children from then have grown up. Many have started families or have now made a roots trip to India. Sometimes they find what they are looking for, but often it is impossible. India is a huge country and the government discourages adopted children from looking for their biological parents. It's simply not done. The moral is: let the past rest.”

DNA does not lie, but the interpretation that can be given to it, says genetic genealogist Maarten Larmuseau after the testimony of Noëmi, who is linked to the wrong biological father. Because it is such an emotional and existential quest, it is precisely the scientific execution of genetic genealogy that is so important. Don't let descent be just a commercial product, he explains in this opinion.

The testimony of the Flemish Noëmi Plateau was heartbreaking. On Tuesday evening she told openly about her difficult and emotional search for her biological parents in "Late" on One. Noëmi was adopted from China at the age of one and a half and had felt a loss all her life.

She first felt where she came from when she was linked to a biological father after a DNA test. But a second DNA test disproved this claim. She's back at the start of her quest. How is it possible that different DNA analyzes provide conflicting results? DNA doesn't lie, does it?

DNA kits

However, there is no doubt about the power of DNA analysis for finding biological relationships. As soon as commercial DNA kits came on the market, many adopted children found their biological parents, children of the same anonymous sperm donor were linked together and genealogists further clarified their family history by searching for distant relatives worldwide. For children with unknown biological parent(s), the commercial DNA companies are often the only hope in their emotional and existential quest.

Following the news that a number of participants of the 'Spoorloos' program in Colombia have not been linked to the correct biological family, there are signs of unrest among adoption organizations. Stichting Wereldkinderen, the only Dutch organization with a permit that mediates in Colombia adoption, has received three questions, says director Jeroen Jansen when asked. According to Inez Teurlings of the Interlandelijk Adoptees Foundation, there are concerns among some adoptees after the revelations about the mismatches.

"There are questions about whether some DNA tests have been performed correctly"

"It causes unrest. There are questions whether some DNA tests have been carried out correctly. Cheap tests only test on four points, with others on twenty. We think the latter tests are more reliable, but they are a lot more expensive, around 400 euros," said Teurlings. "There must also be heard and heard about Edwin Vela's actions."

Furthermore, according to Teurlings, the way Spoorloos presenter Derk Bolt reacted poorly in the community. Derk said on Wednesday evening in talk show Khalid & Sophie that he continues to believe in the discredited fixer.

The broadcast of the program Scammers Tackled , in which the mismatches come to light, can, according to the Wereldkinderen foundation, 'lead to emotions and questions in people who, from whatever role, feel connected to adoption in general or adoptions from Colombia in particular'. , according to a message on the website. Jansen does not want to comment further 'on the nature of the responses we receive, since they are of a personal nature'.

KYIV, Ukraine — When Katie-Jo and Christian Page decided last winter to host a Ukrainian orphan in their home through the nonprofit Host Orphans Worldwide, adoption wasn't actually on their minds.

"We decided it wasn't something that we were going to be able to do just based on the travel aspects and financial reasons," 30-year-old Katie-Jo Page, from Snohomish, Wash., says.

But then they met Mykyta — an 11-year-old with blond hair and lively hazel eyes from the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine. Page describes him as fun, joyful and a "good older brother" to their three young daughters.

The family started the process to adopt Mykyta on the second day of his stay.

"We just felt like he was a part of the family and he was meant to be in our family, so we knew we'd do whatever it took to make it official," she says.

Sociologists uncover government guidelines on adoption as a source of recent social history.

What is a good childhood? A long, protected and materially secure childhood is a social reality in Germany as well as a normative pattern. Its core elements are taken for granted – currently, for example, the constant presence of at least one parent (preferably the mother), freeing the children from work and, of course, promoting the personality of the child, above all through education. Even if this pattern may differ culturally and socially, it is certainly the parents who are primarily responsible for a good childhood. "Good parenting" could be empirically represented by surveys, by evaluating the countless parent guides or by retrospective surveys of how children experienced their parents.

Alexandra König and Arne Niederbacher have now found a completely different approach: the adoption agency and the associated task of finding the best parents for a child. Although the current legal situation imposes narrow limits on the procedure, these primarily concern the question of who may apply to be adoptive parents at all. For the subsequent mediation of parents and child, on the other hand, the "Recommendations for adoption mediation" provide guidance for the responsible authorities in determining the "best parents". These recommendations have been published since 1983 by the Federal Working Group of State Youth Welfare Offices. They are now in their eighth edition. In these 40 years, the normative concept of good parenting must have changed in line with changes in society, according to the authors' assumption. So what separates the best parents of the 1980s from today?

The personality of the parents becomes the central criterion

The year 1976 was decisive: since then, the best interests of the child have been the decisive criterion in adoption practice. It was no longer the child's "adoption suitability" that was tested, but the suitability of the parents. The age of the adoptees has been falling since then, and today there is an increasing demand for babies. The “incognito adoptions” that were common in the past are becoming rarer, and with them the desire to be able to fake biological parenthood to the outside world. Now it's a matter of matching the child's special needs and the parents' ability to meet them. The placement authorities are faced with a very difficult task: they almost always have to make a decision before the child and the adoptive parents even meet. There are always far more applicants than children. And newborns in particular must be placed as quickly as possible.