Over the past ten years, ten foreign adopted children have been refused just before or after arrival in their adoptive family. Three children from Portugal were sent back, one stayed with another, Dutch family.
More than ten children have had their adoption refused just before or after their arrival in the adoptive family in the past ten years. Of the eight children adopted from Portugal in 2019, one was rehomed in a Dutch family, after which it returned to Portugal. Two Portuguese children who were adopted together in the same year were also removed from their home and then, in consultation with the Portuguese central adoption service, returned to their country of birth. Two years later, another adoption of two children from Portugal was stopped, before the children came to our country, at the request of the adoptive family.
Four children from Ethiopia and three children from India, who had already been assigned to their adoptive families, were also refused. In 2018, one child from Bulgaria came to Flanders via intercountry adoption – that child was placed outside the home. This also happened in 2021 with a child from Thailand, who was rehomed with other candidates from the same adoption service.
It is not about large numbers, but in the past ten years fewer and fewer children were adopted from abroad. In 2008 there were 210, last year 21, or ten times less. And yet just as many children were refused or rehomed as in the first decade of the century.
“Tip of the iceberg”
