Post by Werner Derijcke

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐝𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐍𝐞𝐨-𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? Yesterday, Minister Caroline Gennez virtually intoned that international adoption “belongs to another age”, invoking the support of a broad spectrum of political parties. My stomach turned. Autumn 2014. An orphanage in Northern Thailand. A woman comes out of a bungalow holding the hand of a little boy. She crouches down beside him and says: 𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑦. We swallow hard. The three of us are left alone in a playroom to start getting to know each other. At noon someone comes to fetch us so that Victor can share one last meal with his community. On the way, a whole troop of children quite clearly do everything they can to win us over. Then suddenly I feel not that Victor withdraws his hand from mine, but that someone lifts it away and slips his own tiny hand into mine. It was one of the most heart-rending moments of my life. I had to remove that other hand as gently as I could, so that its little owner would not take my gesture for rejection, but simply for what it was: 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑦, 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑦, 𝑖𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦. But it also had to be done in such a way that Victor would understand that we had come for him. He had been prepared to welcome us, and we had been prepared to meet him. Contrary to the old song by Maxime Le Forestier, we had not fallen in love with an entire boarding school: it was an entire orphanage that was trying to win us over. Thailand allows children to leave for international adoption only when domestic solutions have been exhausted. And even then, the procedure is tightly regulated. Adoption is not the purchase of a child by parents deprived of biological offspring. Still less is it a charitable gesture towards “some poor unfortunate child”. It is a love story, and like any love story, if it is to flourish, it must rest on reciprocity and mutual respect. I do not claim that every country does things as well as Thailand, nor that every love story is happy or easy — we are currently navigating the teenage years, which is… lively — nor that there are no dysfunctions. But even if only Thailand remained — even with imperfections, if any — that alone would suffice to justify rejecting the barbaric decision to bring international adoption to an end. Is it, in fact, the very principle that troubles policymakers? Or rather the — very real — impossibility of guaranteeing zero risk? Instead of capitulating under the guise of neo-colonial paternalism that is frankly insulting to countries of origin, let us improve procedures and ensure the best possible support for both adoptive parents and adopted children. But let us not shut the door in their faces. Victor asks me to add that his name is not Victor, that he is still a kind boy — and that he approves this message nonetheless.