New push for Netherlands to ban adoption from abroad

The SP wants the Netherlands to stop adoption from abroad and will submit a proposal to that effect in parliament on Thursday. There is too much room for abuse, and it is not a sustainable way of protecting children, MP Michiel van Nispen told RTL Nieuws.

In 2021, then-Minister Sander Dekker for Legal Protection halted all adoption from foreign countries after a highly critical report on how things have gone wrong in the past. An investigative committee found “structural abuses” that were still continuing, including "falsification of documents, the abuse of poverty among the birth mothers, and the giving up of children for payment or because of coercion.”

The government later decided to allow foreign adoption again, but only from a select number of countries and under strict conditions. Netherlands residents can currently still adopt children from South Africa, Lesotho, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Portugal.

“It is inevitable that we will eventually stop intercountry adoption,” Van Nispen told the broadcaster. “It is not a sustainable solution to protect children. So adopting children to the Netherlands will have to be phased out in the long term, in a very careful number.”

According to the MP, it is better to start working on that sooner rather than later. “I ask the Minister to come up with a new plan. A new plan that will ensure a careful reduction.”

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, will vote on the proposal on Tuesday.