Congo grants exit visas to adopted children after two-year wait

Congo will allow 69 children to leave for adoption by foreign parents, the first to be granted exit visas since the government imposed a moratorium two years ago, the interior ministry said on Monday.

Ministry spokesman Claude Pero Luwara told Reuters that a commission had approved exit visas for children to join 14 American families and families in France, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands.

“They have all the documents. They are able to leave now,” Luwara said.

Congo imposed the moratorium in September 2013 over fears that adopted children could be abused or fall victim to trafficking. The government has also voiced concerns about adoptions by gay couples.

An investigation by the Thomson Reuters Foundation last month found that more than 80 adopted Congolese children have been smuggled out of the country and to the United States in the past two years.

Some Congolese judges have continued to grant adoptions to foreign parents despite the exit visa ban, leaving some 1,000 adoptive families, nearly half of them American, in limbo. The U.S. and other foreign governments have repeatedly pressed Congo to lift the suspension.

Luwara added that a bill to lift the moratorium had been drafted by the relevant ministry and awaited parliamentary approval. (Reporting By Aaron Ross; Editing by Richard Balmforth)