Last year, she sued the agency and the government for what she calls notable practices, but a court rejected the claims, saying too much time had passed.
“I have mixed feelings” about the commission’s investigation, she said. Butink said in an interview. “I did not expect the minister to act.”
But, she added, “we knew something was wrong.”
In 1998, the Netherlands acceded to the Hague Adoption Convention, an international agreement aimed at preventing crime and fraud in international adoptions. It made the rules stricter, but it did not go far enough, said Mr. Dekker said.
The report covers tens of thousands of children who have been brought to the Netherlands over several decades, but international adoption has declined in recent years. According to the government, in 2019, Dutch parents adopted only 145 children from other countries.
“I hope there will be an open discussion about this worldwide,” said Hilbrand Westra, a specialist on the subject who was adopted from Korea to the Netherlands in the early 1970s. Mr. Westra said he has worked for about three decades with people who have suffered psychologically under adoption.
“We need a permanent stop,” for adoptions from abroad, Mr. Westra said.
Many others disagree.
Sander Vlek, chairman of the National Organization for Adoptive Parents and the father of two adopted children from South Africa, said the decision to suspend international adoptions was taken in a hurry, without input from parliament or scientific research on contemporary adoptions.
“It harms children for whom parents will no longer be available,” he said.
Statistics Netherlands, a government agency for statistics, surveyed more than 3,000 people for the commission’s report. About 70 percent said international adoption should remain possible, among both adoptees and others.