Committee wants Dutch gov't to halt adoption from abroad: Report

The Dutch government must halt the adoption of children from abroad for the time being, a special committee concluded after researching the matter. They discovered "serious problems" in the process, they said in a report that will be published on Monday, AD reports based on information from sources around the cabinet.

The committee, led by civil servant Tjibbe Joustra, investigated the adoption of children from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka after information surfaced about illegal adoptions from Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s. The report covers the period 1967 to 1997, but the system still has structural problems, the committee concluded.

The Joustra Committee discovered issues like child theft, child trafficking, corruption, forgery and theft of documents, unethical acts by civil servants, and children being brought to the Netherlands under false pretenses. The committee wants the Netherlands to apologize for the way in which adoptions from abroad were and are being handled. It also wants to set up a reporting point where people in other countries can report misconduct.

Until the adoption culture and system is fixed, the committee wants to temporarily halt adoption from abroad to prevent further abuses.

According to AD, this is leading to some disagreement in The Hague. The report will be discussed in the Council of Ministers on Friday and then released to the public on Monday.