In the year of the violent military coup in Chile, Adoptionscentrum begins arranging adoptions in the country. The organization's local representative is a Swedish woman called Aja. But where do the children being flown to Sweden really come from? Part 1 of 4. English version.

1. The Swede in Santiago

Published: Fri 11 Jun 06:30Fri 11 Jun • 27 min

In the same year as the bloody military coup in Chile, the Adoption Center starts its operations in the country. On site, they have a Swedish representative, a woman named Aja. But where do the children who fly to Sweden actually come from? Part 1 of 4.

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A Scottish mother forced to give her baby up for adoption in the 1970s says an apology for the cruel practice would "lift women out of shame".

The Scottish government is facing calls to issue an official apology to Scottish mothers who were pressured into giving up their children.

It is estimated 60,000 women had babies adopted simply because they were unmarried.

MSPs debated the issue of a government apology at Holyrood on Wednesday.

In the 50s, 60s and 70s, many women were coerced into handing over their babies. Many were denied access to housing and social benefits which may have allowed them to have kept them.

ASSIGNMENT REVIEW · On Tuesday, the Riksdag decided that the government should as soon as possible investigate how Swedish authorities and adoption organizations have handled international adoptions to Sweden. The decision comes after several revelations about historical irregularities with adoptions to Sweden from, among others, Chile.

In 2018 , SVT together with Chilean journalists revealed how adopted children from Chile in the 1970s and 80s may have been taken without the consent of mothers. In the spring of 2021, Dagens Nyheter also reviewed adoptions to Sweden - and last week, Assignment Review published the series "The Stolen Children" , about the Chilean adoptions.

Now the Riksdag has decided that the government should as soon as possible investigate the international adoptions to Sweden from the middle of the 20th century until today. The decision comes after a proposal from the Social Affairs Committee and will, among other things, look at how Swedish authorities and adoption organizations have handled the adoptions.

Martina Johansson (C) thinks that Sweden should have appointed an investigation much earlier.

- I think it's a great pity. We have lost three years investigating what Sweden has played a part in this, she says.

Family Minister Michael Falzon is aware of at least 6 Maltese couples who have still chosen to go to India to adopt a child, in spite of a devastating Covid-19 wave in the country which has claimed the life of a prospective adoptive father.

47-year-old Ivan Barbara and his wife had travelled to India to adopt a girl last March, but ended up succumbing to Covid-19 in April, before evacuation could be carried out. His widow had also contracted Covid-19, but recovered and has since returned to Malta with the daughter they had adopted.

Maltese COVID-19 patient dies in India before being evacuated

During question time on Tuesday’s parliamentary sitting, Falzon was asked a number of questions on adoption, and revealed that the couples who had gone to India to adopt a child had even asked whether the authorities would stop them.

“But who am I to do so,” Falzon reflected. “You have to be in their shoes.”

News reports of children being orphaned by Covid-19 deaths in India raise the spectre of a generation of children without adequate parental care. But international responses that favour solutions like building orphanages and seeking adoption for these children are misguided and can lead to child exploitation. In this post, Kristen Cheney explains why, and how you can better support children orphaned during the pandemic.

A year ago, my colleagues and I were already forewarning of calls to ‘rescue’ ‘Covid orphans’. As care reform advocates, we are familiar with the pattern: after every disaster—natural or manmade, instant (‘Haitian earthquake orphans’) or slow-burn (‘AIDS orphans’)—media coverage laments the situation of children left without parental care. So when Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic last year, we worried—not so much about whether as about when we would start to see calls for assistance to these orphans. It has taken a while, but now, with the horrible escalation of Covid-19 in India, these stories are starting to emerge.

Children’s advocates worry because these calls tend to take the form of ‘orphan rescue’ narratives, which usually spur desires to go to the children and build massive orphanages, as well as demands for international adoption. And yet we have known for decades that these responses, though well-meaning, are at best deeply flawed and counter to children’s overall wellbeing. Over half a century of child development research has documented the deleterious effects of institutionalisation and risks in international adoption, prompting the United Nations to adopt the Alternative Care Guidelines, which call for institutionalisation and international adoption as last resorts, favouring instead family-based care solutions.

Orphans don’t need ‘rescuing’; they need protection

At worst, ‘orphan rescue’ narratives have spurred corruption and exploitation of children, prompting perverse incentives to traffic children into institutions and even international adoptions for profit. In fact, this has profit motive been so prevalent that I have been tracking its development in what I call the global Orphan Industrial Complex.

A voir ce soir

«Le roman de Renan» : un doc sensible et sensé sur l’adoption homoparentale

Dans le documentaire diffusé ce mardi soir sur France 2 Anne Gintzburger retrace le parcours d’un couple d’hommes et d’un enfant de 10 ans qui, malgré les épreuves, réussissent à s’adopter mutuellement.

Image extraite du documentaire le Roman de Renan d'Anne Gintzburger. (Chasseur d'étoiles)

par Aurore Savarit-Lebrère

"It is an overwhelming phenomenon to contemplate the same beautiful full moon here, in Addis Ababa, as in Madrid or anywhere in the world!" Alfredo thought upon arriving in the Ethiopian capital and following the established process to adopt a child (a girl , in this case) in the immense African country. Alfredo had to undertake the journey in Paris before, since Ethiopia did not have an embassy in Madrid. He narrates that his first experience with Ethiopian officials was not very spirited: "Correct for the resolution of his efforts, but cold."

Alfredo and his wife, Stella, decided to spend those Christmases of 2005 in their house in the coastal town of Vera with friends, and there they received the news that they had a life to adopt. It is then when Alfredo decides to start writing "The Moon of Addis Abeba" (Letrame Editorial; Almería, 2020) and in which he recounts over almost 400 pages the real journey of an adoption by a Spanish marriage of a happy Ethiopian girl four-year-old, who in adolescence emanates from within a volcanic fury in search of his own identity.

According to LA RAZÓN, “it is not until February 2006 that Asha's face appears before us. It was only a first meeting, because the girl would remain in a House of Transition, where she would learn Spanish and would be prepared for the home that awaited her with open arms. The parents set out for Addis Ababa to pick up their daughter Asha after the court ruling. Memories, as Alfredo confesses, of a very poor country, of some officials at the airport used to "keep the change", of a merciless orphanage.

The first days in Spain, which coincided with the Easter holidays, were a real test of effort for the parents, with a girl who was looking for the breast of her adoptive mother, suffered nocturnal enuresis and attacks of rage . Alfredo, the biological father of a young woman who had become independent from a first marriage, was often struck by serious doubts as to whether he would know how to cope with the new situation of a loving and challenging girl in equal measure.

He says that his little girl was very intelligent, she quickly learned correct Spanish, but she did not stop evoking memories of her biological family that she must have carried deep inside. "For her it must have been a great detachment, a painful uprooting of its deepest roots , of which at that time we were not aware," he admits.

Amanda Janssen's adoption papers contain a name and date of birth that are not hers. She still doesn't know who she is. She hopes one day to find her real mother through DNA. “If someone asks how old I am, I can't answer that question with certainty. And I don't know my real name either. Nor who my biological parents are.”

“I am not the person described in my adoption papers. All I know is that I am from Sri Lanka. It is almost impossible to explain to others what it means to me that I have lost my identity. It's in a part of my brain where there are no words at all. It has a big effect on me. Sometimes I don't even know who I am anymore. And I'm harder on myself than other people. Like I think: if they did this to me, then I should be able to handle anything.”

'Finally recognition'

“Recently it was in the news that intercountry adoption will be stopped for the time being, due to abuses in the past. People now want to make sure that things don't still go wrong. That in itself is good news, I no longer feel like a voice crying in the desert. I have presented so many facts with other adoptees before, and nothing was ever done about it. Now recognition has finally come.”

“But otherwise we are still at the same point where we were already. No concrete help has come for me and other people this has happened to. What I need is a foundation that's right, an adoption file that's right. In other words: identity recovery. A part of me now remains hidden in the mist. The way I put together, my character, the nature of the beast. It's always a bit of a gamble; from whom do I now have which traits? That applies to every adoptee, but if your papers are correct, then you have the choice to start looking.”

The Mother & Baby Homes Commission of Inquiry returned to the public's attention as one of the Commissioners decided to speak about it for the first time at an invitation-only Oxford University zoom

The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman started off looking like he might have a quiet fortnight. By the end of the first week, he found himself on air arguing that he might have to withhold redress from Mother & Baby Home survivors if they insisted on their experiences being officially recognised.

By the end of the second week, his Government was saying it planned to appoint another expert to do a new report into those testimonies to address the Commission report’s failures.

Apart from the continuing marvel of a Minister apparently eager to continue to put the torch to his own credibility in order to act as a spokesman for his Department’s unsustainable policy positions, the past two weeks have provided a kaleidoscope of views into how power in Ireland works now.

This is the Gist.

A report containing proposals for a redress scheme for the survivors of mother-and-baby homes is set to be completed next week.

The Interdepartmental Group report is expected to submit its findings to Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman in the coming days.

It is understood that the redress scheme could provide payments to survivors based on the length of time they spent in the homes.

Survivors are also likely to receive what has been described as an "enhanced medical card".

Once the Interdepartmental Group has issued its report to Minister O'Gorman, the matter would then go to Cabinet in July when the minister would bring a memo to Government outlining the scheme in full.