Concerned with loopholes in the present adoption laws, Germany has suspended adoption of children from Nepal by its citizens.
The move comes less than a week after The Hague Conference on International Private Law, an international body than governs adoptions between countries,
recommended suspension of adoptions from Nepal.
Investigation by the body had allegedly found that some children from far-flung areas of Nepal were falsely termed as orphans before they were put up for adoptions without their parents’ knowledge.
According to Republica, the German embassy in Kathmandu has informed other diplomatic missions about the move, but the same has not yet been officially communicated to the Nepal government.
It stated that the German decision is a reaction to lack of adequate child protection mechanism in Nepal. On an average German parents have been adopting 15-20 Nepali children each year.
The report stated that Germany had suspended adoptions from Nepal in 2007 as well and the move was followed by other countries. The same is expected to happen this time around.
Besides Germany, children from Nepal are adopted by parents in Spain, Italy, USA and France.
Following a similar allegation, Nepal had stopped inter-country adoptions in May 2007. Although it resumed in January 2009 after introduction of new legal provisions, allegations of abuse still persist.
The latest Hague Conference report says that many children are taken away from their parents of giving them education and put up in adoption centres as orphans with the help of fake documents.
“The findings of the report are right. A lot of improvement needs to be done on protecting rights of children put up for adoption,” said the Nepal head of an international organization working for child rights.