Guilty of not adapting to Dutch culture
More details have now been released about the Dutch couple who gave back their adopted Korean daughter after being the child’s parents for seven years:
A diplomat accused of “dumping” his adopted daughter flew home yesterday after triggering a row about the ethics of Europeans adopting Asian children.
Jade, a seven-year-old of South Korean origin, is the focus of an escalating dispute across two continents. At the age of four months she was adopted by a Dutch consular officer based in Hong Kong, Raymond Poeteray, and his wife Meta. But the couple have now surrendered Jade to the Hong Kong social welfare department for readoption, reportedly because the child could not adapt to Dutch culture.
The revelation has sparked protests amid claims that the couple were treating the child as if she were an unwanted present. She had been discarded like “a piece of household rubbish”, said the Dutch daily De Telegraaf. [Times of London]
“Could not adopt to Dutch culture?” What does that mean? The baby from four months old would only know the culture these parents taught her. This passage from the Times of London article clearly explains the real reason why the child could not adapt to Dutch culture:
Dutch newspapers tracked down a former babysitter yesterday who took care of Jade when she was a baby in Indonesia. She too was bemused by the fate of the little girl whom she remembers as a quiet but normal child. “I took care of her in the evenings, while an Indonesian woman was with her in the daytime,” she told De Telegraaf. “But Meta did not treat as her real daughter.”
The Hong Kong authorities are searching for new adoptive parents. Jade speaks Cantonese and English and, despite the claims that she could not communicate with her parents, some Dutch.
Here is even more from the Indonesian maid that cared for the child:
A nanny who cared for an adopted Korean girl given up by a senior Dutch diplomat and his family claims the girl was not treated like a normal daughter, a news report said Friday.
She was rarely in her mother’s arms and always in the care of someone else, according to a former Indonesian maid quoted in South China Morning Post Friday.
The woman, who has requested not to be named, worked for the Dutch vice-consul Raymond Poeteray and his wife Meta in Hong Kong and when the family was based in Jakarta in 2002.
She said she thought it strange that the girl, now eight, was so quiet.
‘They did not treat her the same way as the son. There was not the love there,’ the maid told The Post. [M&C]
Raymond & Meta Poeteray
Obviously they were not treating Jade as one of their real children if they didn’t bother to teach her Dutch at home and then criticize her for it afterwards. Then the fact that these parents did not bother to complete her Dutch citizenship they claim was simply an “administrative oversight”. How the heck do you forget to complete citizenship for your own daughter? Could it be as the babysitter says, they never considered her as their daughter in the first place? Raymond Poeteray was the Consul (Management & Consular Affairs) in the Dutch embassy, he probably wouldn’t even need to wait in line like the rest of us poor saps who have had to deal with citizenship paperwork at our respective embassies.
I bet they found time to complete the citizenship paperwork for their biological children that I’m assuming were born while they were overseas. I’m also willing to bet that if their biological children had “bonding problems” they would not have given them up.
The more you read about this the more it becomes clear that Jade was nothing more than a kiddy prop for them when they didn’t think they could have children. It appears the Dutch press is rightfully hammering them and Raymond Poeteray has also been recalled back to the Netherlands to explain what is going on. It appears he is going to experience little heat since they are standing behind his actions. How do you defend someone that is one of your highest ranking diplomats at your respective embassy and he doesn’t even bother filling out citizenship paperwork for his daughter is beyond me.
Is there anyone else left out there that wants to defend their actions besides the Dutch government?
If you want to register your displeasure with the Poeterays you can find his email address listed here and the Dutch consular website has his phone number and fax numbers along with more e-mail addresses listed here.
WHAT THE FRACK IS THIS COUPLE DOING AND THE DUTCH ARE SUPPORTING THIS?
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