A Dutch diplomat and his wife dumped their eight year old Korean adopted daughter on Hong Kong officials claiming that she was unable to “fit in” with the family. Not surpringly, the couple’s horrific act has made headline news around the world and ignited a wave of international anger.
Raymond Poeteray, currently the vice consul at the Dutch Consulate General in Hong Kong, and his wife adopted baby Jade from South Korea in 2000 at the age of four months. The couple believed themselves to be infertile at the time. Since then, the couple was able to conceive two biological children. The couple claims that Jade was never able to intergrate into their culture or family and that doctors had diagnosed her with a “severe fear of bonding”. A nanny who claims to have worked for the couple tells a very different story. She said the couple treated Jade very differently than their two biological children and that the diplomats wife rarely hugged the little girl.
This story is horrific and outrageous! What kind of monsters must these people be to mindlessly give away the child they had been raising for nearly eight years with no regard to her future well being. This couple had the girl from the time she was four months old. It’s not like she was a fully formed child with possible abandonment issues. Any issues the girl had with bonding and building relationships is a direct result of the care, or lack there of, given to her by her adopted parents. The diplomat and his wife scared her and ruined her and have now decided that she is no longer wanted. Isn’t there some sort of child-endangerment law that these people can be prosecuted for?
Inter-racial adoption is already a controversal and complex matter, it doesn’t need this type of publicity to complicate things even further.
