Minister of Justice says: no inter-country adoption when major risks

Dutch Minister of Justice says:
no inter-country adoption when there are major risks

News | 14/01/2010

If inter-country adoption are proceed by incomplete or unreliable information and the risks are too great irregularity, licensors may terminate relations with a country. That says Minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin in a letter to the House of Representatives during the presentation of various reports of the Youth Care Inspectorate on intercountry adoption.

The Youth Care Inspectorate notes that a tension exists between the legitimate expectations of the Hague Adoption Convention and the responsibility of the adoption intermediary organizations (licensees) to the reliability of the data to check.

The Inspection licensees do not always have the possibility to check data reliability. This is because the principle of trust, which insists, that one must trust that the other State treaty functions effectively, does limit the possibilities to check data.

Minister Hirsch Ballin confirmed the tension and has also presented this issue earlier in the House of Representatives. He insists that licensees inform him when doubts about the reliability of the information occurs and says that the Central Authority (the section within the Ministry of Justice dealing with intercountry adoption) should continue to play an active role in the appeal to those countries from where the Netherlands get adoptive children.

In risky situations there will always be consultation between the Central Authority and the licensee (s). If necessary contacts licensees can terminate the contact with sending countries. The Central Authority intensified, since 2007 the contacts with other central authorities of sending and receiving countries .

Research on licensees

The Youth Care Inspectorate also investigated the two licensees, requested by the minister, who are dealing with adoptions from China. Adoption Agencies: Wereldkinderen (Children of the World) and Stichting Kind en Toekomst (Foundation Child and Future) have mediated a total of seven children for Dutch families from Zhenyuan orphanage in the province of Guizhou in China. According to media reports in July 2009 in the period 2001-2007 children where incorrectly registered as a orphan and adopted on improper grounds.

After examining the inspection concludes that the licensees have carefully conducted the mediation of the seven children from the orphanagewithin the capabilities they have.

Furthermore, the Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Central Authority reported during a recent visit to the Netherlands, that none of the children from the Zhenyuan orphanage adopted by Dutch families, where involved in the abuses. (translation UAI)

Comments from the UAI

The statement of the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands does effectively not show any real change in policy and execution of the adoption procedure.

• The Ministry will not close any adoption channel and leave this decision to the adoption agency.
• The Dutch Agencies will not structural be controlled by the Ministry unless this is requested by the agency itself or by a major structural flaw in their proceedings or international signal of abuses like the China cases.
  
• Adoptive parents who found problems during their adoption procedure can complain to a so called Complaint Committee Agencies regarding Intercountry Adoption.
• Adoptees have no organisation where they can address their issues.
  
• No Agency has been pointed on an ethical standard which should refer to protection the rights and interests of parents and adopted children and later grown up adoptees. Like we have seen in the Banking world, the agencies can dictate their own ethical perception of adoption never the less the so called 'handbook on qualitative adoption procedures'.
• Conclusion: FOR ADOPTEES AND THEIR PARENTS OF ORIGIN NOTHING WILL CHANGE AND EVENTUAL CONSEQUENCES, COSTS AND LEGAL SUPPORT DUE TO MISGUIDED ADOPTIONS WILL BE ALWAYS ON THE ACCOUNT OF THE ADOPTEES AND THEIR FAMILIES OF ORIGIN. IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD ENDS EFFECTIVELY WHEN THE CHILD AS BEEN SHIPPED TO THE RECEIVING COUNTRIES.