Last year, she sued the agency and the government for what she called questionable practices, but a court rejected the claims, saying that too much time had passed.
“I have mixed feelings” about the commission’s investigation, Butink said in an interview. “I didn’t expect the minister to act.”
But, she added, “we knew something was wrong.”
In 1998, the Netherlands joined the Hague Adoption Convention, an international agreement that aims to prevent crimes and fraud in international adoptions. That made the rules stricter, but it didn’t go far enough, said Dekker.
Although the report covers tens of thousands of children brought to the Netherlands over several decades, international adoption has declined in recent years. In 2019, Dutch parents adopted only 145 children from other countries, according to the government.
“I hope there will be an open discussion about this around the world,” said Hilbrand Westra, an expert on the subject that was adopted for Holland from Korea in the early 1970s. Westra said he has worked with people for about three decades who have suffered psychologically with adoption.
“We need a permanent halt” in adoptions abroad, said Westra.
Many others disagreed.
Sander Vlek, the president of the National Organization for Adoptive Parents and father of two adopted children from South Africa, said the decision to halt international adoptions was hastily taken, with no input from Parliament or scientific research on contemporary adoptions.
“This seriously damages children whose parents will no longer be available,” he said.
Statistics Netherlands, a government statistical office, interviewed more than 3,000 people for the commission’s report. Among adoptees and others, about 70% said they believed that international adoption should remain possible.