JAKARTA - Indonesia’s coordinating law minister has called for faster processing of citizenship applications from three Indonesian-born Dutch citizens who say they were taken overseas through illegal adoption and trafficking.
Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Corrections Yusril Ihza Mahendra said in July 22 remarks that the cases should follow existing procedures but receive prompt attention.
“The process is normal and, if possible, should be accelerated,” he said. “We must provide protection and make it easier for them to regain Indonesian citizenship.”
The intervention concerns Casmat van Bloppoel, Indra Jaya Laksana and Ana Maria van Valen. They asked Law Minister Supratman Andi Agtas on June 12 to restore their citizenship, saying they were removed from Indonesia and taken to the Netherlands through illegal adoption, abduction or trafficking in 1979 and 1980.
Mahendra said the law minister could handle the applications without referring them to the president, except in special naturalisation cases involving the national interest.
He said a dedicated team and the Indonesian Child Protection Commission could assist because the applicants were children when the adoptions and changes to their legal status occurred.
“Now, it’s sufficient for the Minister of Law to handle it; it doesn’t need to be handled by the President, except for naturalization in the interests of the state,” Mahendra said, as quoted first by VOI.
Indonesia’s 2022 citizenship regulation allows former citizens to apply to regain nationality through the law minister, either electronically or through an authorised official.
The regulation establishes an application route but does not guarantee approval. Officials must first establish each applicant’s original citizenship, how it was lost and whether the available records are valid.
The 2021 Joustra Committee report recorded 3,072 Indonesian children officially placed with Dutch families between 1973 and 1984. It documented forged or inaccurate records, child trafficking, unreliable intermediaries and so-called baby farms in Indonesian adoption channels.
The Netherlands is now phasing out intercountry adoption after concluding that malpractice risks could not be eliminated through tighter regulation.
“We should never have lost our citizenship,” Van Valen told Migrant Times on July 23. She welcomed the government’s response as recognition of the human-rights harm suffered by adoptees and their biological families, saying each overseas placement also represented a family separated from a child.
She also compared their experiences with the recent trafficking case involving Indonesian babies taken to Singapore. A Bandung court convicted 19 defendants on July 21 over a syndicate that sold at least 34 babies between 2022 and 2025.
“What is happening now with the babies in Singapore is exactly the same as what happened with us around 50 years ago,” she said. “The same system.”
Van Valen added that restoring identity documents should be accompanied by safeguards against similar removals. “We hope Indonesia will protect us now,” she said.
