Report points to 30 years of international adoption mishandling in France

A shocking report compiled by two historians questions the 'systemic' nature of the irregularities that have persisted in some 20 countries for over 30 years.

Pandora's box has been opened. These last few years, the growing number of testimonies of French people claiming to have been illegally adopted abroad already suggested that such abuses were numerous in France. But the "Historical Study on the Illicit Practices of International Adoption in France" published on Monday, February 6, by historians Fabio Macedo and Yves Denéchère presents an even more shocking picture of the scale of the issue.

"This raises questions regarding the commonality of these illicit practices and their systemic nature," said the two researchers attached to the University of Angers. In December 2021, the French Foreign Affairs Ministry signed an agreement to allow them to compile this independent research report.

Their study, based on 9,600 pages of archives from the government's diplomatic collections, most of them classified, demonstrates that numerous illicit adoptions have been carried out in over 20 countries since 1979, despite the incessant warnings sent by the consular services to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. These include: "Child trafficking" and "irregular adoptions" in Chile, Paraguay and Peru. "Monthly income" offered to biological parents in exchange for their child in India. "Corruption and document fraud" in Cambodia. "Abductions," "fabrication of false orphans" and the forced abandonment "of newborns by very young mothers" to meet "the demand of French adoptive parents" in Madagascar.