Dutch gov't wants to phase out adoption from abroad in six years

Prospective adoptive parents will have another six years to complete their ongoing procedure for the adoption of a child from abroad. State Secretary Teun Struycken (Legal Protection) wants the ongoing adoptions to be “carefully” completed by the end of 2030. It concerns almost 600 procedures, he reported to parliament. Earlier this year, the government already stopped accepting new intercountry adoption applications.

The phasing out and definitive stopping of intercountry adoptions is at the express request of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament. The Kamer wanted to do away with this form of adoption after a devastating report from 2021 about numerous abuses that had been going on for years with foreign adoptions.

For example, it turned out that it was not always clear whether children were lawfully adopted from the countries of origin and that a lot went wrong in the procedures. There was also a lack of correct registration of the children and their origin, meaning that many children could not trace their birth families.

After the publication, the then Cabinet temporarily suspended adoptions from other countries. Later it restarted the processes, but only with a few select countries. The Cabinet wanted to improve the adoption system with a new central adoption authority. However, the Tweede Kamer had no confidence that this would put an end to abuses.

The idea that vulnerable children can be better cared for in their own environment and in their own country and culture has also become more common.

As of 21 May 2024, there were 587 active procedures for adoption from abroad. Of these, 293 prospective adoptive parents were in the first phase, in which they received information from Fiom. Another 97 candidates had registered with the Child Protection Board for a family investigation. The other 197 prospective adoption parents had already received approval in principle from the Central Authority and were in the final phase of mediation.

Struycken has decided to allow all these prospective adoptive parents to continue their procedure.