Domestic distance and adoption
Photographer: Lindz Marsh op Unsplash
This project runs from May 2023 – May 2025
Commissioned by the Committee on Domestic Distance and Adoption (CBAA), Atria is conducting a sub-research into the experiences of people who experienced distance and adoption in the Netherlands between 1956 and 1984. During this period, many women who were unmarried or had unwanted pregnancies gave up a child for adoption.
This sub-research, which started in May 2023, highlights the stories of people who relinquished a child, people who were relinquished as a child, people who raised a relinquished child and relatives of all these people.
What does the research entail?
The committee is leading an independent research with three main questions:
- What happened?
- What caused it to happen the way it did? Which actors/institutions influenced the decisions?
- How did those involved experience the events during that period and later in their lives?
Atria’s sub-research ran in parallel with studies by the International Institute of Social History (IISG) on historical sources and Maastricht University on contemporary perspectives.
What is Atria’s role within this research?
On the basis of a questionnaire survey, oral history interviews and an analysis of submitted life histories, we will analyse what those involved experienced themselves and what this meant for them at the time and afterwards. It involves women who have given up a child, men whose children were given up, people who were given up as children, people who brought up one or more given up children, and people who were affected by this in their immediate environment.
What is the purpose of this study?
A report will be made of the sub-research, which together with the other sub-research should answer the committee’s questions. The committee will draft the answer in a report. The committee plans to present the report to the State Secretary for Legal Protection in spring 2025.
Team
- Ingrid Doorten (researcher and project leader)
- Paula Thijs (researcher)
- Britt Myren (researcher)
- Franca Hehenkamp (researcher)
- Mickey Steijaert (researcher)
- Tess Czerski (researcher)
Partners
This research is funded by the Committee on Domestic Abandonment and Adoption (CBAA).
