AMSTERDAM: The Netherlands will no longer permit its citizens to adopt children from foreign countries, the government said on Tuesday.

Minister for Legal Protection Franc Weerwind added that intercountry procedures that already started will continue for the time being.

Dutch parents adopted around 40,000 children from 80 countries in the previous half-century. The practice has declined in recent years, with just 145 children adopted in 2019. This dropped to 70 in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the independent Dutch Youth Institute think tank.

After a report flagged irregularities in the system, the Netherlands froze international adoptions in February 2021. The report said that some children had apparently been stolen or bought from their birth parents in cases going back to the 1960s. It also slammed authorities for the lack of care in transnational adoption processes.

Adopted children in the country tracing their roots often found that their documents had been forged or lost, or that their adoption was illegal.

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