Kathmandu, November 13:

Nepal will resume work on 442 child adoption applications made by foreigners that had been delayed over concerns large amounts of money were involved in the process, an official said today.

The move came after three European PMs urged action on applications by families from Spain, Italy France, Canada, US and Germany.

“We opened the pending cases of international adoptions from Sunday after receiving orders from the Council of Ministers,” Prakash Kumar Adhikari, a legal official from Nepal’s social welfare ministry, told AFP.

But new adoption applications will remain on hold until rules are put into place that meet international standards, Adhikari said.

The premiers of France, Italy and Spain wrote to PM Girija Prasad Koirala earlier this week to process the suspended adoptions, the French embassy said.

Under the old adoption regulations, the cost of processing the paperwork was $300, but some foreigners had been asked to pay as much as $20,000 to middle men and orphanages, according to sources involved in the process. Official figures show 1,715 children have been adopted by foreigners in the past seven years.