"No indication of irregularities in adoptions in Flanders"

"No indication of irregularities in adoptions in Flanders"

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5/05/17 - 13:20 Source: Belga© Benoit De Freine.

The Flemish Center for Adoption (VCA), which prospective adoptive parents guides before and during the adoption procedure, has no evidence of irregularities in the only three adoptions in Flanders from the DR Congo in 2015. Even those children came from Tumaini orphanage in Kinshasa.

At least three Congolese "orphans" that were adopted in our country, have biological parents in their home country. They were kidnapped and placed in an orphanage in Kinshasa where they were given false names. The Belgian adoptive parents are oblivious and never knew that their children were robbed from their families. The federal prosecutor's office found that the children who were abducted arrived in our country in 2015. They had different identities and different birth dates and were never intended for adoption. That Het Laatste Nieuws discovered.

Cooperation with the DR Congo and the orphanage was started in 2013. "The three adoptions by Flemish families were test files and date from 2015. At the end of 2013 Congo established an adoption moratorium which still stands. We have no indication that there is something wrong with the files of the Flemish families," says Ariane Van Den Berghe of the Flemish Center of Adoption, which operates under Child & Family.

The SCC contributed to the ongoing judicial investigation surrounding the adoption by the orphanage. The Flemish files have been involved with the research. We have no indication that something went wrong, said Leen Du Bois, spokesman for Child & Family. "The families do not have to worry." After the arrival of the children SCC decided to stop cooperation with the orphanage, and because of the moratorium.

The federal prosecutor's office declined to comment. "All I can confirm is that the investigation is still ongoing," said Federal Magistrate Eric Van Der Sypt.

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