FLASH · Oil on canvas · 55x75 cm · 2024.

The Netherlands is freezing international adoptions after a government commission found some children had been stolen or bought from their birth parents in cases going back to the 1960s.

In total some 3,400 children were adopted from Sri Lanka between 1973 and 1997. Most of the children were brought to the Netherlands via adoption agency Flash, which, experts said, was the most active in the illegal adoption trade.

Dutch governments had failed for years to intervene.
The abuses included coercing or paying birth mothers to give up children.

The investigative committee found that Dutch government officials were aware of wrongdoing and that some were involved in abuses, though it did not find evidence of bribery.

Sri Lankan authorities have admitted in a Dutch documentary that thousands of babies born there were fraudulently sold for adoption abroad in the 1980s.

Up to 11,000 children may have been sold to European families, with both parties being given fake documents.

Text from the BBC, Dutch News and Al Jazeera.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55982542
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2023/07/state-in-the-dock-again-over-illegal-adoption-practices/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/8/dutch-freeze-international-adoptions-after-abuses-uncovered