"Disrupted" adoptions? How can we stop things like this?
I am heartsick over the story of the 7 year old girl, adopted in Korea by Dutch diplomats at 4 months old, who they turned over to Hong Kong fostering. Apparently the claim is that she had culture shock and did not want to eat Dutch food. Maybe she's just a picky eater! They never naturalized her, so she is not a Dutch citizen and does not have Hong Kong residency, but doesn't speak Korean.
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/071212-dutch-diplomat-child-mc
And from a group of Korean adult adoptees:
http://goal.or.kr/upload/bbs/e613/495411974421940.pdf
What do you all think about this? I know that there are some times when a child is better off without a family that is horrible for them--adoptive or not--and this might be one of them for this child. But, oh, my heart just goes out to her.
How we can stop things like this from happening? There just has to be some sort of better screening or mandatory counseling or something that would keep people like this from adopting.
To clarify, it is unclear where this child will be able to live. She does not have Dutch citizenship, because her adoptive "parents" never went through the process for her to become one. She does not have residency rights in Hong Kong, where she has been living for the last few years. It isn't clear (to me) if she could still legally live in Korea, but that would be hard anyway, as she does not speak Korean. She speaks English and Cantonese, according to the reports. It seems as if she must speak Dutch also, but the reports have read don't say that.
It is just an awful situation for her, but her (apparently former) adoptive "father" goes on about how hard it has been for "everyone" and how the adoptive "mother" had to go to counseling.
Another thing that might be important to the story is that the couple thought they were infertile when they adopted her, but they have since had 2 birth children. That makes the whole sad situation a lot more troubling, at least to me.
The thing about her not wanting to eat Dutch food really bugs me. I mean she's 7, for heaven's sake, how many 7 year old are picky eaters?! For this we destroy their family? And she was adopted when she was 4 months old, so Dutch food (or Cantonese, or whatever else she has eaten in this family) is the only solid food she's ever known!
It just steams me that it should be so easy to "disrupt" an adoption and just throw away an adopted child like this. If parents gave their seven year old birth child up to the state because they didn't like the food, the state would probably look into removing the other children. Why should it be different for an adopted child?!