Adoption scandal hits Congo
"The government is taking this as a preventive measure," Justice Minister Emmanuel Aime Yoka said late on Wednesday. He said the suspension was prompted by the events in Chad - which have sparked a global uproar.
A French group calling itself Zoe's Ark was stopped last week from flying the children it described as orphans from Sudan's Darfur to Europe, where the group said it intended to place them with host families.
Seventeen Europeans have been detained by Chadian authorities, including six French citizens who were charged with kidnapping. The group says its intentions were purely humanitarian.
The French Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the claims by the little-known group that the children were orphans from Darfur - the western Sudanese region bordering Chad that has for the last four years been a battleground for rebels, government troops and government-allied militiamen. UN agencies said on Thursday they had interviewed the children and found most had at least one living parent.
In the Republic of Congo, Justice Minister Yoka said the Chad incident occurred only a few days after 17 children from the Republic of Congo were adopted by Spanish families. He said the two events were not connected, but said the coincidence of timing led the government to re-examine its policies.
Republic of Congo is taking measures to verify the situation of children from the country currently in Spain, he said.
"We have written to the foreign minister to find out what has happened to these children," Yoka said.
Sex of labour traffickers
Though Zoe's Ark's intentions appeared to have been humanitarian, the incident has focused attention on the possibility African children were being taken abroad by sex or labour traffickers because of poor policing of international adoptions. The apparent assumption that the children would be better off in Europe than with their families also has drawn criticism.
At least one human rights group in Republic of Congo has been calling for action on suspected child trafficking in the country since August. The head of that group, Loamba Moke, said he was "satisfied" with the suspension but called for the government to delve deeper into the possibility that Republic of Congo's children are being sent abroad illegally.
"The case of Zoe's Ark and the traffic in children in Chad challenges us all. What happened in Chad could easily happen in other African states," Moke said.
At least 30 children ranging from a few weeks old to three years were sent to Spain in 2006, Moke said, citing figures from the embassy of neighbouring Congo, which tracks children transiting it's capital, Kinshasa. More global figures were not immediately available.
A Spanish group that facilitates adoptions from Republic of Congo, The Association for the Adoption of Congolese Children, could not immediately be reached for comment.