Sending Countries
Chile
In late 2018 Chile’s, Cámara de Diputados (Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Chile’s national congress) convened a Comisión Especial Investigatora (CEI-18) (Special Investigation Commission) tasked with reviewing institutional files and identify any irregularities in the adoption processes. The final report, presented at the end of 2019, concluded that hundreds of children had been taken from their parents and sent abroad for adoption. Testimonies showed that children routinely disappeared at birth, often enabled by hospitals and the lack of accurate registries; these practices affected mostly vulnerable women. The CEI’s findings laid the basis for further action; in the same year, Chile’s National Human Rights Institute (INDH) filed criminal forced-disappearance complaints related to these cases, that spanned between 1973 and 1990.[1] However, as the CEI had no prosecutorial authority, its documentation of abuses did not trigger any convictions.
Since 2018, Chile’s judiciary has been conducting a criminal investigation into child abductions and irregular adoptions, though the process has been full of controversies. Several different judges appointed by the Supreme Court to oversee the cases were removed because of their controversial opinions and statements, which delayed proceedings.[2]
In 2023, the INDH dedicated a chapter of its annual report to irregular adoptions; the report, published in 2024, summarised the magnitude of the issue and state’s ongoing failures. The report stated that of the thirty-one forced-disappearance complaints filed to date, none had resulted in convictions.[3]
In 2024, the Ministry for Justice and Human Rights (MINJUDDHH) announced the creation of the first taskforce dedicated to investigating irregular international adoptions and coordinating the state response.[4] Previously, it had been assumed that illicit practices were limited to the period of the Pinochet dictatorship, but new testimonies and public complaints have showed that illegal adoptions have continued to occur in Chile.[5] Although the country’s adoption system has been reformed and improved since the dictatorship, there are still problematic procedures that remained in place. The Chilean justice system and investigative police have been examining intercountry adoptions for years, but only for cases up to 2004. Complaints from subsequent years are handled by the national police or the Ministry of the Interior, leaving no Chilean public entity responsible to investigate irregular adoptions complaints that happened over the past twenty years.[6]
The Chilean Chamber of Deputies created this special investigative commission to examine irregularities in the adoption, registration and international adoptions of Chilean children between the 1950s and the early 2000s. The Commission identified the involvement, through act or omission, of multiple state and non-state actors, including health personnel, civil registry officials, judges, immigration authorities and private adoption agencies. These networks enabled newborns to be transferred to adoptive families abroad through falsified documents. The more than 2,000 cases under investigation seemed to suggest an organised and profit-driven system of child trafficking that was hidden as a legitimate adoption process. The Commission’s work included hearings with government ministries, the Civil Registry, the National Service for Minors (SENAME), police forces, consular officials, historians and associations of adoptees and biological mothers. The report demonstrated systemic failures in Chile’s historical adoption practices. Moreover, in April 2025, Justin Versleijen, Secretary of the Chilean Adoptees Foundation, filed an official criminal complaint regarding his false death registration and his child trafficking story from Chile to the Netherlands. His complaint has also been declared admissible.[7]
In May 2025, the President of Chilean Adoptees Foundation, Mirjam Hunze, filed a criminal complaint with the Special Investigating Judge of the Court of Appeal in Santiago de Chile, holding the Chilean state liable for illegal adoptions, alleging a network of actors responsible for the abduction, trafficking and irregular adoption of many Chilean children, not just her. She is demanding a criminal investigation into all the parties involved in the abduction of children and compensation for human rights violations. The criminal investigation has been declared admissible in Chile and it is still ongoing.[8]
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[1] Blanca Bórquez Polloni, Adopciones internacionales irregulares en Chile (Serie Minuta n. 24-25, Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional, 14 March 2025) <https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=repositorio/10221/37110/1/Minuta_N_24_25_Adopciones_internacionales_irregulares.pdf> accessed 16 November 2025.
[2] Charis McGowan, ‘Chile’s stolen children: a new effort offers hope to the Pinochet-era international adoptees’ (The Guardian, 14 July 2024) <https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/14/chiles-stolen-children-a-new-effort-offers-hope-to-pinochet-era-international-adoptees> accessed 16 November 2025.
[3] ‘Chapter 6 Adoption and Identity – Chile’ (Indigenous Nigerian Dialogue / Intercountry Adoptee Voices, September 2025) <https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Chapter_6_Adoption_Identity_Chile_IND2023-ENG.pdf> accessed 16 November 2025.
[4] Blanca Bórquez Polloni, Adopciones internacionales irregulares en Chile (Serie Minuta n. 24-25, Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional, 14 March 2025) <https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=repositorio/10221/37110/1/Minuta_N_24_25_Adopciones_internacionales_irregulares.pdf> accessed 16 November 2025.
[5] ‘Adopciones illegales de ninos chilenos no se han detenido: uno de los últimos casos denunciados es de noviembre de 2024’ (CIPER Chile, 21 March 2025) <https://www.ciperchile.cl/2025/03/21/adopciones-ilegales-de-ninos-chilenos-no-se-han-detenido-uno-de-los-ultimos-casos-denunciados-es-de-noviembre-de-2024/> accessed 16 November 2025.
[6] Elena Basso, Giulia de Luca, Boris Bezama, Louis Andrè-Williams, ‘The illegal adoption business in Chile is not only about the dictatorship’ (El País, 4 May 2025) <https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-04/the-illegal-adoption-business-in-chile-is-not-only-about-the-dictatorship.html> accessed 16 November 2025.
[7] Lynelle Long, ‘Intercountry adoptees taking legal action and reclaiming our rights’ (International Adoptee Voices, 17 October 2025) < https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/2025/10/17/intercountry-adoptees-taking-legal-action-and-reclaiming-our-rights/> accessed 16 November 2025.
[8] Tonny van der Mee, ‘Mirjam start in Chili rechtzaak wegens kinderontvoering en adoptiefraude door Nederlandse “non”’ (AD, 6 February 2025) <https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/mirjam-start-in-chili-rechtszaak-wegens-kinderontvoering-en-adoptiefraude-door-nederlandse-non~ae326788/> accessed 16 November 2025.
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INFORME DE LA COMISIÓN ESPECIAL INVESTIGADORA DE LOS ACTOS DE ORGANISMOS DEL ESTADO, EN RELACIÓN CON EVENTUALES IRREGULARIDADES EN PROCESOS DE ADOPCIÓN E INSCRIPCIÓN DE MENORES, Y CONTROL DE SU SALIDA DEL PAÍS (REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE ACTIONS OF STATE BODIES IN RELATION TO POSSIBLE IRREGULARITIES IN THE ADOPTION AND REGISTRATION OF MINORS, AND CONTROL OF THEIR DEPARTURE FROM THE COUNTRY) (2019)
Official report (2019): https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DocumentoFicha.pdf
Unofficial English Translation (2019): https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/DocumentoFicha-ENG.pdf