The investigation into the historical abuses in international adoption in Flanders appears to be bogging down due to conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency. Three participating academics have already withdrawn. Among adoptees, incomprehension is growing.
When Sophie Withaeckx saw the contract in December 2025, she found an unexpected clause that immediately made her decide not to sign: she and her fellow researchers were expected to maintain absolute secrecy.
The Flemish Centre for Adoption (VCA) had asked her to oversee the screening process of a new investigation into illegal adoptions as an independent expert.
A valid question, Withaeckx initially thought. As a lecturer at Maastricht University, she had already served on the Flemish expert panel that investigated abuses in intercountry adoption. She knew better than anyone how often the grievances of adoptees were ignored.
Expert Sophie Withaeckx: “If you are not allowed to speak publicly about your advice, you run the risk of being automatically expected to stand behind every decision.”
But her condition was clear: her advice had to remain public. The VCA demanded the opposite. “If you are not allowed to talk about it, you run the risk of automatically being deemed to stand behind every decision,” she says. Withaeckx dropped out. Two other academics came to the same conclusion.
It is indicative of the way Flanders is conducting the investigation. The appointed research partner, International Social Service (ISS), turns out to be itself entangled with adoption practices of the past.
Meanwhile, the head of the VCA is maintaining direct contact with a South Korean agency that will investigate the matter itself. In this case, the person responsible for verifying the historical failure turns out to be the same person who allowed it to happen in the first place.
Double role
Let's rewind a bit. In December 2023, Hilde Crevits (CD&V), then Flemish Minister of Welfare, launched an appeal. Anyone with doubts about the legality of their adoption file could report them to the Flemish Centre for Adoption.
What is the Flemish Centre for Adoption?
Doubts or reports, the VCA stated, could concern “adoptions from all countries, including Belgium, and from all periods”. By the end of 2025, 241 reports had been received: 188 from adoptees, 43 from adoptive parents, and 10 from birth parents, spread across 31 countries of origin.
Since 2023, at least 241 reports have been received by the Flemish Centre for Adoption.
The VCA announced it would scrutinize those reports and investigate what had gone wrong in the past. Preparations began in 2024. During this process, the agency sought out qualified organizations and experts for each country of origin to analyze the old adoption files.
However, the VCA has a dual role. Here, it acts as the client for the investigation. As a government agency, however, it has been ultimately responsible for adoptions in Flanders since 1989 – and consequently, also the body that for decades processed files that are now the subject of the investigation.
Conflict of interest
So the agency is organizing an investigation into its own historical failure, argues Yung Fierens of the advocacy group Critical Adoptees Front Europe (CAFE). “It is as if the architect has to judge whether the collapsed house was safe. No one would accept that. But apparently, anything goes in the adoption sector.”
To prevent conflicts of interest, the VCA sought a neutral partner. This ultimately became International Social Service, an international organization acting as a mediator and advisor. This NGO was tasked with screening partners and professionals per country of origin who would sift through the files, such as national adoption services or advocacy groups.
However, that choice is not without controversy either. In the past, ISS acted as an intermediary for adoptions from South Korea, among others. The organization mediated between adoptive families, authorities, and institutions in various countries and oversaw intercountry adoptions, including cases that later proved to be problematic.
In other words, it played an active role in a sector that abducted children and falsified identities on a large scale.
“The employees of the ISS knowledge center are in no way involved in adoption files,” according to the VCA.
The VCA qualifies that criticism. “ISS’s involvement in intercountry adoption is limited to a small number of individual cases handled by local partners. The staff at the ISS knowledge center in Geneva, who developed the screening tool and assess the local partners, are in no way involved with those adoption cases.”
Nevertheless, the ISS collaborates internationally with a great many partners. It weighs its own partners against other candidate partner organizations. Is the ISS then really as neutral as the VCA claims?
Academics abused
Enter Sophie Withaeckx and two other academics, Hari Prasad Sacré (UGent) and Shila Khuki de Vries (Radboud University). Like Withaeckx, Sacré and De Vries have an adoption background, in Nepal and Bangladesh, respectively.
The VCA requested the trio to assess ISS’s screening work as independent experts. The assignment states it as follows: “If a candidate is also an ISS partner, an external party reviews the report to avoid conflicts of interest.”
That sounds good, but what happens when the academics effectively give a partner a negative assessment? In that case, the VCA can disregard that advice and choose that party anyway. Due to a binding confidentiality clause, the researchers are subsequently not allowed to mention this at all.
“Then you end up in a situation you see quite often with advisory committees,” says Withaeckx. “It is claimed that 'experts have been consulted,' while nothing has been done with their input.”
“They took away what is most precious to me: my child”
De Vries, who has experience as a contract manager, immediately saw that the contract was flawed: “I know those kinds of documents. This one was drafted very strictly, severely restricting our confidentiality. Moreover, it carried far-reaching liability in the event of a breach of contract. I would never sign in that way, so I lodged an objection.”
Shila De Vries speaks of 'tick-the-box participation'. “I notice the same thing in the Netherlands: they listen politely to us, only to then do something completely different.”
Sacré adds: “I was working on an assignment for the European Commission at the same time, so I could compare the confidentiality clauses perfectly. The VCA’s was completely out of proportion.”
He wonders why the researchers need to have an adoption background. “I have experience with quality control, so the request to supervise seemed legitimate to me. But I didn't understand why it was important that I was adopted myself. I think they were told somewhere that they had to involve adoptees, and that they just combined that quality control and adoption background.”
De Vries, who was adopted in the Netherlands, recognizes a pattern of tick-box participation in this. “In the Netherlands, I notice the same thing: they listen politely to us, only to then do something completely different. This is not just a feeling, but based on previous experiences.”
The VCA states that with those confidentiality clauses, it only intended to protect the personal data of candidate research partners, in accordance with the GDPR.
Why were the academics not allowed to make the recommendations public? “In any case, we wanted to be able to communicate with all involved research partners first,” says the VCA.
That seemed like a correct approach to us. Subsequently, the academics were allowed to make their recommendations public. Although they initially agreed with these provisions, they eventually withdrew one by one.
“Flanders is suddenly being praised internationally for its good practice in the field of adoption. While we are practically the only region in the world with recent adoption scandals,” says Yung Fierens of CAFE, pointing to the bigger picture.
“We owe that image solely to the VCA’s tactic: enlisting adoptees to do their dirty work. Large international NGOs see this and think: look, adoptees are getting a voice in Flanders, they are being involved. While in reality, we are simply being used.”
The VCA rejects that interpretation. “It was an explicit condition to involve experts with an adoption background. Because we specifically want to recognize and validate their expertise.”
Fierens cites the Steunpunt Adoptie buddy system as an example. In this system, adoptees provide aftercare to each other as volunteer buddies. “I can imagine that this is valuable for some, but it is not professional support. Nevertheless, the government is now fully expanding that system. Why? Because those buddies have to be loyal. They sign a contract stating that they are no longer allowed to express criticism of the VCA or Steunpunt Adoptie.”
Yung Fierens (CAFE): “The mechanism is clear: they try to get as many adoptees on board as possible to stifle the criticism.”
Apache was able to review such a contract. It demands “loyalty regarding operations.” But, says Fierens, “the mechanism is clear: they are trying to get as many adoptees on board as possible to stifle criticism.”
The three academics noticed strange dynamics during the rounds of discussions. The rules of the game changed constantly, the assignment was adjusted along the way, and various personnel changes at the VCA did not benefit continuity.
“An atmosphere of mutual distrust,” is what Sacré calls it. “Everything was constantly changing, so we didn’t feel that the agreements made would be honored. Every time you had built a bond of trust with a contact person, they would leave and suddenly there was someone else sitting in front of you.”
The final blow to mutual trust came when it emerged that the VCA also wanted to involve the Dutch government. Suddenly, employees of the Ministry of Justice were going to help screen the files.
Withaeckx calls the fact that the VCA also wanted to involve the Dutch government “a downright breach of trust”.
“The whole idea of our involvement was that people independent of the ISS would assess the situation,” says De Vries. “No one is one hundred percent neutral, but at least we are parties that have never actively facilitated adoptions. And then the VCA suddenly brings people to the table who work for an actor that does.”
In the Netherlands, investigative committees established that the government was aware of abuses in intercountry adoption – and sometimes also involved in scandals. Withaeckx calls their participation “a downright breach of trust”.
Although the VCA quickly reversed course, it was too late: the three academics withdrew in December 2025.
It continues to bother the three academics that the VCA keeps tight control over the direction of this historical research. “The conflict of interest is interwoven within the VCA itself,” states Sacré. “It conducts research into the past, but at the same time it is engaged in new adoptions. How critical can it really be, then?”
Expert Hari Prasad Sacré: “The conflict of interest is interwoven within the VCA itself. It is investigating the past, but is simultaneously working on new adoptions.”
This interconnectedness is significant not only because the VCA is a government agency. When Flanders reformed the intercountry adoption services, the separate adoption services disappeared as independent players. However, much expertise and many involved individuals did not disappear from the picture: they went to work at the VCA.
The VCA emphasizes that this transition was necessary to guarantee the continuity of ongoing cases after the end of 2023, when the Flemish government no longer granted licenses to intercountry adoption services.
“That team was exclusively tasked with guiding prospective adoptive parents and following up on ongoing cases. Other VCA assignments, such as investigating malpractice, remained strictly separate. Those teams work completely independently of each other, with their own staff. They do not have access to each other’s files,” according to the VCA.
However, Withaeckx finds it “problematic” that the VCA and the ISS are leading and conducting the investigation. According to her, all agencies in the adoption sector are to blame for what went wrong.
“When so many mistakes occur under your supervision, it is high time to take responsibility,” she says about the VCA. “In any other sector, layoffs would follow or people would resign.”
The search for partners for the actual investigation also did not proceed without a struggle. In theory, interest groups for adoptees, among others, were eligible for this. They possess years of expertise in file research, questions of origin, and abuses.
In practice, several organizations withdrew their candidacies as soon as the contract terms were presented. CAFE, Yung Fierens' organization, also withdrew from the process.
“Interest groups like ours built up in-depth expertise on illegal adoptions and roots research for years without a single euro of subsidy,” says Fierens. “And now we were told that, as a partner in this investigation, we had to unconditionally share our know-how with the VCA and ISS.”
She refers to the recent decision by the Flemish Government regarding intercountry adoption. As of 2027, the practice will be completely discontinued in Flanders.
“That leads us to suspect that the research is primarily a study project for the VCA and other government-subsidized organizations,” says Fierens.
“After all, the adoption sector is rapidly seeking a new business model. With the same knowledge as we have, organizations in the adoption sector could make a fresh start by, for example, guiding roots trips and family searches as an aftercare service.” She says that former adoption agency Het Kleine Mirakel, among others, is now positioning itself as an aftercare service.
Many adoptees fear that organizations that were part of the system will be responsible for supporting victims of that same system.
That is unsettling for many adoptees. They fear that organizations that were part of a system with serious flaws will once again be given a central position in supporting victims of that same system.
“Through government-funded research and post-adoption projects, those who were initially responsible for the system continue to appropriate the knowledge, power, money, and control,” says Fierens.
The underlying question is therefore: is the recovery of adoptees central? Or the survival strategy of a sector that needs to reinvent itself?
It is not only the choice of partners that is under fire. The VCA itself also maintains direct ties with agencies that are supposed to scrutinize the investigation.
Emails seen by Apache reveal that Ariane Van den Berghe , a Flemish adoption official and head of the VCA, recently traveled to South Korea to give workshops to Korean adoption organizations. She spoke with, among others, the Korean adoption authority NCRC .
That visit is sensitive because several investigations are underway into the NCRC regarding possible fraud in the storage and digitization of documents. The organization was recently the subject of a scandal when personal files of adoptees were released due to a data leak.
According to the VCA, the working visit was part of international cooperation regarding the reform of adoption legislation. It believes that the talks were necessary to gain access to the archives and to enable future file investigations.
The VCA is seeking a local partner there to verify files on-site and has been trying for some time to establish contact with NCRC, the Korean government agency that preserves historical adoption records. Without their cooperation, thorough research is hardly possible. Therefore, the VCA stayed two days longer after the training for a working visit to NCRC.
However, for some Korean adoptees, whether or not they reported to the VCA themselves, the approach raises questions. The contacts took place at a time when no investigation partner for South Korea had yet been designated and without prior consultation with the whistleblowers reporting possible abuses.
Fierens, herself illegally adopted from South Korea, was furious when she heard that the VCA maintains ties with the Korean adoption authority.
“I was furious when I heard it,” says Fierens, herself illegally adopted from South Korea. “They didn’t communicate that. It was only after she (Van den Bergh, ed.) had already left that the adoptees from South Korea found out.”
According to Fierens, the visit reveals the VCA's contradictory position. On the one hand, the organization claims that the investigation must be conducted independently and outsources the file review. On the other hand, it maintains direct contact itself with the institutions that need to be investigated. “Then you ask yourself why an external investigator is still necessary.”
The VCA admits that “the timing may raise questions.” “However, the site visit was scheduled at the request of the Permanent Bureau in The Hague and was completely separate from the investigation into malpractice. That the visit roughly coincided with the selection of investigation partners was purely coincidental.”
When Crevits announced the investigation, the victims hoped for recognition at last. Now that researchers are withdrawing, partners are pulling out, and the system continues to monitor itself, it feels to many like yet another disappointment, yet another missed opportunity.
“The approach of the investigation is already flawed, because the VCA starts from individual complaints,” says researcher Hari Prasad Sacré. “Whereas: the debate should not be about isolated abuses, but about structural failure. You do not get a clear picture of that by investigating five files in India, three in Korea, and one in Ethiopia.”
Sacré: “You don’t get a picture of structural failure by investigating five files in India, three in Korea, and one in Ethiopia.”
He refers to Denmark. There, a university is conducting a large-scale system analysis of adoptions from seventy countries of origin, commissioned by the government. The focus is not on the individual complaint, but on the question of how the system was able to function for years.
Shila de Vries agrees. “The system story is much more interesting. You can put thousands of people with an adoption background side by side and hear all different stories. But at the same time, you see the same patterns in all those stories. They are all manifestations of the same system.”
According to her, Flanders should therefore have listened more to the adoptees themselves from the start. “Then parties that are part of that system would not have become involved again.”