It’s been almost two months since the Netherlands’ shock decision to halt all intercountry adoptions. The unilateral decision by then Minister of Legal Protection Sander Dekker, in response to the Joustra Committee’s report on the issue, is temporary and will not affect adoptions currently in process.
But experts warn that in an election year it may be months before a new government is able to re-evaluate the ban, and that because intercountry adoptions are so lengthy, delaying the screening of new adoptive parents may result in children spending much longer in institutional care.
The committee uncovered massive adoption abuse between 1967 and 1998 in five sending countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka – including corruption, falsified documents, officials forcing birth parents to give up their children in return for payment or through coercion, child trafficking, baby farming and obscuring children’s identities.
Netherlands Halts Adoptions From Abroad After Exposing Past Abuses
An inquiry found systemic abuses like child trafficking, lack of record-keeping and government complicity until 1998. Practices have since improved, the government said, but not enough.
Sander Dekker, center, the minister for legal protection, presenting a highly critical report on international adoptions on Monday.Credit.Phil Nijhuis/EPA, via Shutterstock
Feb. 9, 2021
The Netherlands has temporarily halted all adoptions from abroad after an investigation found that the government had failed to act on known abuses, including child theft and trafficking, between 1967 and 1998.
“Adoptees deserve recognition for mistakes that were made in the past,” Sander Dekker, the minister for legal protection, said on Monday, as the results of the investigative report were made public. “They have to be able to count on our help in the present. And for the future we have to critically ask ourselves if and how to continue a