Why more and more countries are banning international adoptions
Switzerland is considering banning international adoptions following the exposure of questionable past practices. Other countries have halted international adoptions in the name of child welfare.
No more foreign children should be adopted in Switzerland: this is the plan presented by the Federal Council last January. The Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) has been tasked with preparing a bill by the end of 2026. This radical decision was taken after the publication of a damning report in 2023.
Berne then acknowledged significant irregularities in international adoptions that took place between 1970 and 1999. The findings of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences highlighted systemic failures and negligence on the part of federal and cantonal authorities. Also read:End of international adoptions in Switzerland
Several thousand children from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, India, Colombia, South Korea, Lebanon and Romania were brought to Switzerland through illegal practices, including child trafficking, falsified documents and the lack of information about their origins.
Written consent from biological parents was often lacking.
"There are always flaws"
The government's ban on adoptions does not mean, however, that there will be no more adoptions at all, explains Philip Jaffé of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
"Swiss law doesn't cover what happens in all countries. (...) There are still loopholes. We have children born in California to surrogate mothers, where there is an open and legal process for renting a mother. If a couple in their seventies arrives in Switzerland with a legally adopted baby, there's not much that can be done at the border. You can't take the child away from them. You can't send them back either."
And he finds that there is something "hypocritical" in this ban "when today there are only thirty adoptions in Switzerland [per year]. In the 1980s, we had a thousand."
The presence of money attracts too many predators, making ethical practices nearly impossible.
Philip Jaffé, member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Joëlle Schickel-Küng, co-head of the Private International Law unit at the Federal Office of Justice, confirms that the policy decision targets situations where prospective adoptive parents are established in Switzerland and are requesting the adoption of a child who is currently living abroad.
"It does not take into account cases of people living abroad who adopt a child in their country of residence, who then settle in Switzerland as a family. Situations involving surrogacy arrangements abroad are generally not considered international adoptions," she said.
Risk of corruption
Several European countries have already abandoned international adoptions due to serious violations. "There's so much money involved," explains Philip Jaffé, "that almost no one does it out of the goodness of their hearts. The presence of money attracts too many predators, making ethical practices nearly impossible."
It all comes down to corruption or the risk of corruption, he adds, which makes it very uncertain whether the process can be truly clean. "This is exactly what the Hague Convention (editor's note: see box) was intended to address. And while it has been more effective in some countries, the problems persist."
In January, the Committee on the Rights of the Child examined children's rights in Peru: every month, approximately 700 to 800 children between the ages of 12 and 17 disappear. "One can only imagine what happens to them," says Philip Jaffé.
"In a country that does not prioritize child protection and turns a blind eye to these issues, there is never any guarantee that adoptions are carried out ethically."
Hello Europeans
In 2024, the Dutch government banned its citizens from adopting children abroad due to violations revealed in a highly critical 2021 report. In 2024, Denmark halted international adoptions due to the closure of its only adoption agency, Danish International Adoption.
A report denounced the procedures originating from South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, concluding that they were systematically illegal. In Norway, a major adoption scandal revealed that children from South Korea and Ecuador were abducted on false grounds, given false documents, and sold to Western European families.
In 2023, Flanders, Belgium, halted all new international adoptions due to reported malpractices in Ethiopia, Gambia, Haiti, and Morocco.
As recently as 2023, British authorities found evidence of child trafficking and financial misconduct in adoptions from Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, including cases of coerced birth mothers and orphanages receiving payments for placements.
Lever of power in Romania
In the cases mentioned, countries have implemented stricter regulations or restrictions to address the risks that the adoption process is tainted by abuse, trafficking, or ethical violations.
However, some countries of origin prohibit international adoptions for political reasons, sometimes using them as a tool for diplomatic negotiation or retaliation against Western countries.
It all began with Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who died in 1989. Obsessed with increasing the birth rate, he banned abortions and went so far as to call embryos "state property." As a result, abandonment increased, and the country was left with 100,000 orphaned children. After the dictator's death, journalists from the German magazine "Der Spiegel" documented the horrific conditions in which abandoned children lived.
In 1990, Romania lifted the ban on abortions and allowed international adoption. In the first three months, nearly 1,500 children were taken abroad without proper procedures. In 2004, the Romanian government banned international adoption, which was a condition of Romania's accession to the European Union.
Russia: Ban in response to sanctions
In Russia, the Dima Yakovlev Act has been in effect since January 1, 2013. It prohibits American citizens from adopting Russian children. The law, named after a Russian boy who died due to the negligence of his adoptive parents in the United States, was introduced in response to the US Magnitsky Act, which imposes sanctions on individuals Washington deems responsible for human rights violations in Russia. According to State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, more than 100,000 Russian children have been adopted abroad since 1993.
A few years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin discovered that adoption could serve as a political tool. In 2022, he signed a law banning foreigners from using surrogate mothers in Russia. In 2023, a law banning gender reassignment came into effect, also preventing foreign nationals who have undergone gender reassignment from adopting Russian children.
In 2024, Moscow tightened the rules on international adoption. Citizens of countries where gender transition is legally permitted—whether through medical procedures or changes to official identity documents—can no longer adopt Russian orphans. This ban also applies to Switzerland. Russian parliamentarians claim the new rules will protect adopted Russian children by preventing them from undergoing gender transition abroad.
According to the latest data from Equaldex, gender transition is prohibited in approximately 90 countries, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
What is the Hague Convention?
The Hague Convention, created to protect children in international adoptions, was established in 1995, but many countries have still not ratified it. Switzerland acceded to the Convention in 2005.