Report of the Committee investigating intercountry adoption to the Minister for legal protection

The Committee was established when possible abuse concerning the adoption of babies in the 1970s and 1980s in which Dutch government officials might have been involved were discussed. The need to investigate more closely is primarily due to grown-up adoptees, who searched for their roots and found that the available information was inaccurate, or even that the adoption was conducted illegally. This situation for example, makes it impossible or more difficult to establish the origins and identity of adoptees when documents are falsified. The report mentions that adoptees “cannot find answers to their existential questions about their origins and identity”. According to the report, which focuses on five countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka), it seems that the government and intermediaries were aware of abuses as early as the 1960s. The abuses and their consequences are still relevant today, the committee recommends that adoptees to be helped in their search for their birth families and, finally, recommends suspending intercountry adoptions.

Source: https://www.committeeinvestigatingintercountryadoption.nl.