Dutch government accept bribes to get Haitian children
Submitted by United Adoptees... on Wed, 2010-01-20 07:32.
Euphemistic word use to cover Payments
Already in an earlier report, the so-called 'Kalsbeek Rapport' reported that 'unregular'payments would be acceptable to proceed the adoption procedure. They used the OESO guidelines. which has nothing to do with Adoption or otherwise Childprotection issues. The Kalsbeek committee with i.e. adoptive mother and renowned adoption researcher prof. dr. Femmie Juffer, accepted bribery and calls it 'Facilitation Payments' (see page 50).
The argument to accept these minor payments as they call it, is because it is the custom of the country to act in this way. But what is meant with small or minor payments runs between 1000-1.500 euro per child to Haitian authorities* and in the cases of China** (so called Orphanage Humanitarian Aid Fee) 3.500 euro's per child in bare cash to the local board of the orphanage, can be a huge amount for the receiver in these countries. And in comparison you cannot keep saying that these amounts are minor payments. Not even for Western standards as we call 100.000 Chinese Adoptees x 3.500 euro's is 350.000.000,- euro and for the Haitian Children adopted in the Netherlands, 1.000x1.000 = 1.000.000,- in cash. And this is only the additional 'fee'. Not the general adoption fee or expenses for the adoption procedure of a Haitian or Chinese child. And no one knows where this money 'officially' is meant for.
The recent report (Interlandelijke Adoptie, knelpunten in het stelsel) from the Youth Inspectorate in the Netherlands says in the part of the investigation about adoption agency Wereldkinderen (page 14) that in the case of Haiti ,Wereldkinderen decided to stop with adoptions from Haiti due to raising fees to Haitian Authorities to get the children for adoption. This example in the report confirms the stories the UAI received from anonymous adoptive parents who adopted from Haiti a few years ago.
It is very strange that NAS (and former agency Flash) the other Adoption Agency who was quite in a hurry to get children from Haiti this week, does not report anything about these issues. While they work with the same authorities.
Its more as shameful that the Dutch government and the adoptionlobby is enforcing adoptions in a situation like in Haiti right now. But it is unforgivable for many adoptees, that they have been sold and bought by and trough the related governments without a blink of an eye.
Adoption was and is a baby and child-market where everyone provides from except the parents of origin and many Adoptees who get at the longterm brainwashed by programmes as 'Spoorloos' to create persons or group of mythical proportions from an independent human being with a genealogy in the country from origin, into a victim who is rescued by adoption and therefore, has to act as a mascot for the adoption society to keep the adoptionindustry rolling.
Once adoption was meant as a last resort but who dare to dig deeper into the reality of adoption finds a world of facilitations to serve prospective adoptionparents and their governments. Because it became clear, once you are adopted, the government and their assets don't care about Adoptees at all. The proof of this, is that no receiving government ever changed a law voluntarily to meet the needs of Adoptees and their interests. Suddenly what once was used to get the child stays with the child. Adult adoptees who are critical are assessed as outlaws in the (intercountry) adoption system. This is not just a meaning, but mechanism which you can see every day, every month and every year. Decade by decades. With no interest in Adoptees and the urgent need for national and international debates regarding this problematic issue.
At the end, the Adoptees who do not want to become a stranger to him/herself, will finally stands alone in a bewildered landscape where he or she does not really fit. Except, when it becomes an anonymous or silent assimilated creature or as a symbol and a mascot for the success of adoption.
* Not only the Netherlands paid extra, it is expected that all countries who adopted from Haiti paid 'additional' fees to get the children 'freed' for intercountry adoption.
**The so called 'facilitation payments' are not defined as bribes because the Dutch government accept the so called none defined additional payments in cash to get children for adoption by using 'facilitation payments' which is according to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprise not a bribe (page 56). But the fact, that the adoption community and its governments use economical guidelines for multinational enterprise to clarify the financial procedure should somhow create suspicion. The UAI cannot imagine that the use of euphemistic words like 'facilitation payments' will take the reality away that children are sold and bought due to international treaties like the OECD guideline.
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bribes and reasonable fees
Your post made me look into the Kalsbeek report to see for myself what is being said. It's really curious how the commission derived the acceptability of "small" bribes from the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.
As far as I understand, the OECD convention makes the statement that small "facilitation payments", falls outside the scope of the obligation under the Convention to penalise the bribery of foreign officials, which means that actions that can be deemed to be ‘facilitation payments’ in terms of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention,will not be prosecuted.
A weird twist is made in the Kalsbeek report when the following conclusion is drawn:
It is one thing to state that certain actions will not be actively prosecuted. In that sense the OECD may be right in their decision to focus on large scale corruption, instead of small so-called "facilitation payments". It's a very different thing to actually condone those actions from accredited bodies.
Consider this comparable situation. In some countries small scale growth of canabis plants has been decriminalized, while not being legal, it is not prosecuted, just like "facilitation payments" under the OECD convention. According to the Kalsbeek-twist, it would therefore be completely acceptable to start a small canabis plantation within the confines of a police station or any other governmental agency.
The Kalsbeek report seems to make the mistake that not-prosecutable by definition means legal and therefore acceptable.
In my opinion the Implementation handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child is already woefully naive in their approach to payments in intercountry adoption. The text of the handbook states:
The problem I see is that even "reasonable fees" and remuneration of costs and expenses, may already influence proper decision making with regards to the placement of children.
Just take a look at the Masha Allen case, where agencies were willing to look the other way, or at least made no effort to investigate the safety of the placement, just so they could receive their "reasonable fees".
The issue is not whether fees are "reasonable" or not, but whether decision making is influenced by the money involved. In that sense, income dependency is just as bad an influence as actual corruption. Now adoption agencies, home study agencies, independent social workers and orphanages make a living by placing children with adoptive families. Everybody's income in the adoption supply chain depends on successful placement of children. If no children are placed, all people working in the field lose income.
As a result there is a huge economic bias in favour of the placement of children, even when everybody only earns a "reasonable fee".
The result of this economic bias is that children are placed for adoption that could have lived with their original family if someone had taken an effort to offer some assistance. The result is that children end up with adoptive families that should never have been accepted for adoption. The result is that adoption makes enough money to buy influence of the public opinion in favour of the practice.
Adoption is not the measure of last resort it claims to be, and it never has. Adoption has always been a business, but lawmakers refuse to see it that way. Adoption laws and conventions fail to address the commercial nature of adoption, and as a result come up with totally naive notions of "reasonable fees", while others even find it acceptable to condone small scale bribery.
There is one positive aspect to all this condonement of corruption and bribery: inter-country adoption is tanking. More and more sending countries are closing their borders, because they realize inter-country adoption is a non-regulatable practice. So I would urge the adoption industry and lawmakers to keep looking the other way, then at least in five to ten years time inter-country adoption is a thing of the past.
Foreign Adoptees
It's almost laughable how critical adoptees are perceived... as if we are the enemies because we oppose the many wrong-doings done by those who benefit most from foreign adoption.
Although much of the above post discusses the questionable ways in which money is used to obtain so-called adoptable orphans for those wanting to be an AP, a more sensitive adoption issue is mentioned... one that should be discussed since recently PPL members have been referring to race issues in adoption. Why is it so quickly assumed an adoptee wants to identify with the race and culture that exists in their newly chosen home? Why is it assumed poor children want to live in wealth, or children of color want to live with whites? Why is it assumed children "stuck in poverty" want to leave their familiar surroundings and start a new life, which includes the loss of old friends and radical changes which include unfamiliar smells, sounds, sights and language?
I myself really got a much better idea how foreign adoption advocates wrongly assume, exploit, and steal from foreign children after I read Saints or Sinners? You decide and Living in an Orphanage. In fact, thanks to highly successful religious zealots like the Holt's, (founders of an adoption organization that is now filthy rich), we have all sorts of non-racist white American people saying, "Those little Chink kids are so cute!" (I want one too!)... making children of another color and language a much desired addition to a home that seems old and boring.
Adoption advocates want to believe foreign adoptees not only adapt to a new culture... new people.... but they are glad and are happy doing it. How many times is it assumed the smiling foreign child (who speaks another language) is happy and without fear or concern? [A fantastic and funny example of the happy foreign adoptee can be found here: Judy Alive - Episode 1 , Judy Alive - Episode 2 and Judy Alive - Episode 3 ]
Forced assimilation may not be child abuse, per se, but I do think forcing a child to lose something of personal value and replacing that with something he or she does not want is harsh and can be cruel and brutal. That's the psychological side of forced assimilation. There's a physical side forced adoptees are facing, too. I can think of many adoptees who felt as though their (foreign) physical differences and odd/foreign behaviors and beliefs were the cues that drove others to physically and sexually abuse.
Not a real comfort, is it?
Forced Assimilation = USA Social Norm
Forced assimilation was policy, especially for American Indians. Adoption was a major part of this. It's why they came up with an Indian Child Welfare Act fwiw to begin with i.e. quit taking our children and putting them in white households.
Every immigrant group goes through it, not even the Irish were considered "white" until the late 1800s and then, like the Poles, Italians and Russians coming here in droves, they were sill the wrong sect of christianity.
Orphan trains = Forced assimilation.
Sheesh at least we blackest of blacks are mostly Protestant, shoved down our throats may it have been
Again, it's the messiah model -- white, whatever the hell that's supposed to be -- is the standard, somehow, people have gotten the idea that even we who are unable to assimilate v-v physical looks aspire only to sit next to some white child in a school or on a bus or have white parents. White people in the US are raised all their lives with this notion, why should anything change in the adoption process, it's part of the marketing game, oh save a child from somewhere else, be a martyr, self-sacrifice, show off to the world, etc.
Lol well, hate to say it but any person who would make that kind of statement....it, well, kinda goes without saying, actually.
"Unfit" is one word that does come to mind. I've no doubt some white couple wouldn't have minded having me as their little pickaninny either.
Status symbols. That's all we are to a lot of whites and in my case, non-Blacks. Just symbols, nothing more. At least, that's the way a bunch of them act.
So they go to .nl
....somebody gets their little fee, the kids get treated like crap, and then they grow up and....?
What?
What are people thinking? ARE they thinking?