Since October 2022, adoptions of Malagasy children have been suspended in France, a decision which had been unsuccessfully challenged in court. Based on the conclusions of a report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child pointing out the flaws in adoption procedures in Madagascar, the State had temporarily cut off a pipeline involving around thirty children. each year, according to figures from the French Adoption Agency.
But this suspension was only temporary and was coming to an end. It was ratified, without an end date being specified, in a decree in the Official Journal dated October 17. “All international adoption procedures concerning children habitually resident in Madagascar by any person habitually residing in France are suspended,” according to this decree.
Since a law of February 2022, international adoptions by individual process have been prohibited, in order to stop illicit adoptions which have developed at the international level since the 1980s. In France, international adoption has developed significantly in the 1950s to culminate in 2005 with the arrival of more than 4,000 children from abroad in the territory, according to the State Secretariat for Children. Since then, the number of adoptions has seen a significant drop, going from 4,136 in 2005 to 421 in 2019, according to figures he communicated in November 2022 on his site.