Three children from the Congo who
have been adopted by Italian families and are already in Italy
may have been taken from their biological families in exchange
for money, according to a statement on Tuesday by Silvia Della
Monica, vice president of the government's Commission on
International Adoptions (CAI).
Della Monica said judicial authorities have been notified.
"If the children were taken from their families and the
organisations knew about it, there are precise responsibilities
to determine," she said.
A final group of 18 out of a total of 66 children from the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) arrived in Italy for adoption
last June.
The adoptive parents, who had been protesting delays in
the process, were not told of their arrival until the last
pieces of red tape were removed.
DRC authorities authorized the 66 adopted children to join
their Italian parents at the end of March.
Another 14 adopted children were authorized to leave the
African country a year ago, in mid-February.
Then Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, now premier, hailed
the June arrivals and said he hoped for speedy clearance so that
the children can join their adoptive families soon.
In November 2015, the DRC approved the adoptions by foreign
families, including Italians, of 69 children after a two-year
wait.
In May 2014, an Italian Air Force jet carrying 31 Congolese
children adopted by families in Italy arrived from the Congolese
capital of Kinshasa, marking the happy conclusion to a
protracted ordeal.
For eight months, 24 Italian couples had been unable to
bring their adopted children home from the DRC despite
completing the adoption process, due to lack of final clearance
by Congolese authorities.
The government in Kinshasa in September that year suspended
permissions on all international adoptions citing suspected
irregularities, but admitted that none of the procedures in
question concerned Italy.
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