Judgments in intercountry adoption cases

Today the court ruled in two cases concerning intercountry adoption. One case concerns the adoption of a woman from Bangladesh. This woman's claims are dismissed. The other case concerns the illegal adoption of a man from Brazil. In that case, the court partially grants the claims.

Adoption from Bangladesh

The woman was adopted from Bangladesh in the Netherlands in 1976. She accuses Wereldkinderen, Terre des Hommes Nederland and the State of having cooperated in the fact that her biological mother renounced her under false pretenses. According to her, they also did not do enough to properly investigate the abuses in intercountry adoptions from Bangladesh, including hers, and to inform her about this.

Wereldkinderen and Terre des Hommes Nederland have invoked limitation. Since it has been more than twenty years since the woman was adopted, the woman's claims are time-barred. No exception is made in the case of this woman, because on the basis of the available information it cannot be assumed that the woman was given up for adoption against the will of her biological mother and that she was not transferred to the Netherlands in accordance with the applicable rules. The woman also waited too long with the liability of Wereldkinderen and Terre des Hommes.

The State initially also invoked limitation. After an independent commission investigating intercountry adoption (COIA) had reported in February 2021 on an investigation into possible abuses in intercountry adoptions and the role of the Dutch government in this regard, the State dropped the appeal on prescription. The court has therefore assessed the content of the woman's claims against the State.

The court rules that the State is not liable towards the woman. It cannot be established that the State made a mistake when the woman came to the Netherlands for adoption or failed to supervise adoption from Bangladesh. Because there were not enough leads for abuses related to adoption from Bangladesh, the State cannot be blamed for not investigating the circumstances under which the woman was adopted.

Illegal adoption from Brazil

The man was illegally adopted from Brazil shortly after his birth in 1980. In 1981 a national criminal investigation into illegal adoptions from South America was launched, the Brazil Baby Affair investigation (BBA investigation). The investigation revealed that the man and 41 other children from Brazil had been illegally adopted. The man became aware of this in the course of his search for his biological parents and the circumstances surrounding his adoption.

The man only sued the State. He accuses the State, among other things, that the State failed to ensure that the man could know his origin. After the COIA report, the State also dropped its appeal on prescription in this case.

The court ruled that the State acted unlawfully towards the man. According to the court, the State has lost sight of the man's right to know his origin, protected by Article 8 ECHR. When the State found out in the context of the BBA investigation that the legal parents of the man had illegally adopted him, the State did nothing to ensure that the man could know his ancestry, while the State had can and should do. It must be decided in a separate procedure what damage the man has suffered and what the amount of that damage is.

Differences in intercountry adoption cases

Last year, the court ruled in a case involving a woman who was adopted from Sri Lanka in 1992. The court dismissed the woman's claims because her claim was time-barred.

Although all these cases fall under the heading of 'intercountry adoption', the court assesses each case on the basis of the facts and points of dispute between the parties in that case, which differ from case to case. The most important difference between the cases concerning the intercountry adoptions from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and the case of the man from Brazil is that in the latter case it is established that the man was the victim of an illegal adoption and that the State was aware of this. In the other two cases, based on the information available in those proceedings, the court could not assume that the claimants concerned were illegally adopted.