‘Beklemd in de Scharnieren van de tijd: Beleid, praktijk en ervaringen van afstand ter adoptie door niet-gehuwde moeders in Nederland tussen 1956 en 1984’

In 2014, member of Dutch Parliament Marith Volp (PvdA; Labour Party) started a parliamentary discussion on the nature and extent of forced adoption practices in the Netherlands after the introduction of the 1956 Adoption Act. This discussion was a direct response to the TV-programme Brandpunt, which featured the experiences of several Dutch and Flemish women, who had relinquished their child for adoption after the Second World War, in October 2014. After a round table discussion in Autumn 2015, former Minister of Security and Justice Van der Steur commissioned an exploratory research into the effects of Dutch relinquishing practices between 1956 and 1980 and the lessons to be drawn from these for today. This report is the final outcome of this exploratory research. This study focuses on the period between 1956, the year when the Adoption Act was introduced, and 1984, the year when abortion was legalised under the Termination of Pregnancy Act. The aim of this research is to assess the nature, extent and experiences of relinquishment for adoption during this period, and to what extent women who put their child up for adoption – women who also often happened to be unmarried – did so under any form of social or religious pressure through formal or informal enforcement, persuasion or pressure.