Illicit international adoptions of children

10 February 2023

We learn from the press (Le Monde 10/02/23) the delivery of a report written by two academics, Yves Denéchère and Fábio Macedo, at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Historical study on illicit practices in the international adoption in France”.

According to the article, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs covered for almost thirty years the facts denounced to the mission of international adoption (MAI) by the French consular services abroad relating that about fifteen organizations authorized to Adoption (AIO) have arranged fraudulent adoptions under our laws and international commitments, including the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the Convention on the Rights of the child, and the protocol to that convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

It is about kidnappings, making false orphans, forced abandonment of newborns, affecting many countries, such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, Madagascar…, with the key, the organization of a “real market” generating considerable sums.

While one might think that after the scandal of "L'Arche de Zoé" in 2007, revealing child abductions in Chad and Sudan had awakened consciences, while the abduction and forced adoptions of Ukrainian children by Russian families is currently being examined by the International Criminal Court (ICC), France cannot do without an introspection on illicit practices which would have been covered up by public authorities.

Also, DCI-France calls for the immediate constitution of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the facts denounced by the report of the academics and that this one hears the public officials like those of the associations implicated and, also, the associations defending the rights of the child who have long denounced the "market" of international adoption.

Contact: Jean-Luc Rongé, president – ??tel. 07 49 99 77 75

5