The Samoa Parliament has banned the establishment of overseas adoption agencies in Samoa.
Parliament amended the country's adoption law by not only banning any future adoption agencies from off island setting up in Samoa but also prohibiting the adoption of Samoan children to foreign couples.
The only adoptions now allowed would be in cases where the child or children being adopted have blood ties to the adoptive parents.
The changes follow cases widely publicized by the Samoa and overseas media where Samoan parents seemed to have been lured into putting their children up for adoption by the promise of money.
They also follow another case where a baby girl who was at a nanny house awaiting adoption to an American couple died of malnutrition.