Dutch State not accountable for birth moms' suffering in forced adoptions: Court

Trudy Scheele-Gertsen, who was forced to give up her child in 1968 as a young and unmarried woman, cannot hold the Dutch State liable for what happened to her. The court in The Hague rejected her claim.

According to the court, GPs, society, and others put women like Scheele-Gertsen under immense pressure to give up their children. As a result, they were "incapable of really making their own decisions in freedom." Scheele-Gertsen blamed her suffering on the Child Protection Board, but precisely because of the tremendous social pressure, the court "cannot say that the council acted unlawfully." Child protection services did not help unmarried mothers to raise their children themselves, but that was not its task at the time, the judges said.

Moreover, the case is time-barred. Scheele-Gertsen could have filed her complaint in 1994 at the latest.

The "legal assessment" made by the judges does not diminish Scheele-Gertsen's grief, the court stressed. "We can't turn back time. It's not your fault that it turned out this way," the presiding judge said to the woman.

Scheele-Gertsen was 22 and unmarried when she had a child in 1968. She gave birth at the Paula Foundation in Oosterbeek, with the nuns there helping. Shortly after giving birth, the boy was taken away from her. The child first stayed with the nuns and was later adopted. Scheele-Gertsen only had contact with him again in 2018.

About 15,000 women faced similar circumstances in the Netherlands between 1956 and 1984. Bureau Clara Wichmann joined Scheele-Gertsen's case on their behalf. The agency's claim was also substantively rejected and time-barred. It should have filed its case before 2004.

Bureau Clara Wichmann, which stands up for women's rights, finds the ruling disappointing and is considering an appeal. "How will this go down in the books, we wonder. As an injustice that has been done to thousands of women, that is recognized, and where the State takes step to hear them, regain their trust and support? Or as a closed matter."