Sri Lanka baby farms: Minister admits illegal adoption trade

Sri Lankan authorities admitted in a Dutch documentary that thousands of babies born there were fraudulently sold for adoption abroad in the 1980s.

Up to 11,000 children could have been sold to Europe, with both parties being given fake documents. Some were reportedly born into "baby farms" that sold children to the west.

Sri Lanka's health minister told the Dutch current affairs programme Zembla he would set up a DNA database to help children find their birth mothers. About 4,000 children are thought to be have been relocated to families in the Netherlands, with others going to other European countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the UK.

One adoptee called Rowan van Veelen, told the BBC earlier this year that he had travelled back to Sri Lanka to try and find his birth mother 27 years on.

He was part of a Netherlands-based social media network that tried to match Sri Lankan birth mothers to their estranged adopted children. "We want to make a DNA bank with all adopted children from [the] Netherlands who can search if we have siblings there.

UCJ, UNILORIN.