"It screams to the sky": Danish adoption agency closes and shuts down
Denmark's only adoption agency, Danish international Adoption, is now turning the key. Document inspection reveals double work and double pay for an employee in South Africa
Danish International Adoption, also called DIA, is from today the past as Denmark's only adoption agency. In a press release, the adoption agency writes that at an extraordinary board meeting they have decided to close and switch off.
"It is a difficult decision for the DIA board to make. But we see no other way out. The area of international adoption can no longer, under the current conditions in Denmark, be run by an NGO like ours", the press release states, among other things.
The decision has come after the Danish Appeals Board informed DIA on Friday that they would recommend to the Minister of Social Affairs to stop the mediation from DIA's largest mediation country, South Africa. Two days later, the Appeals Board then announced that they would also suspend all adoptions from five other countries for a period.
The Danish Appeals Board has for some time been concerned about South Africa in particular. Danwatch has obtained access to the correspondence between the Danish Appeals Agency and DIA, which shows that for more than a year the agency has been asking critical questions about a problematic employment relationship and opaque bookkeeping in the country.
A centrally located source, who wishes to remain anonymous, but whose identity we know, has read the correspondence between DIA and the Danish Appeals Board:
"Everything indicates that DIA has deliberately and systematically provided incorrect information to the Danish Appeals Board. It looks like fraud", assesses the source.
External lecturer in administrative law at Aarhus University Klaus Josefsen calls the process "ugly".
"You can only guess what happened, but it doesn't seem particularly pretty", says Klaus Josefsen.
This is how we protect vulnerable sources
- Danwatch is in possession of the specific children's cases, internal emails from DIA and correspondence between the Danish Appeals Agency and DIA, which are all confidential material. For the sake of the children and their families and case handlers at both DIA and the Danish Appeals Authority, we have decided to omit the names and positions of persons.
- It is institutions that come under criticism, not named individuals.
Possible conflict of interest
In the summer of 2022, DIA signs an employment contract with an employee in South Africa who turns out to be a problem for DIA. Six months later, in January 2023, the Danish Appeals Board writes to the adoption agency for the first time that not everything is as it should be.
This happens in connection with DIA's application for re-approval for adoptions from the African country, where DIA, together with a number of other papers, submits the employment contract to the Danish Appeals Board. Here, the Board of Appeal notes a number of matters that must be clarified before they will formally approve South Africa.
They are not least bound by the fact that the employee was formerly and possibly still employed by the South African organization Impilo. Impilo mediates orphans for national and international adoption and has been DIA's partner in South Africa for more than twenty years.
DIA explains to the Danish Appeals Board that the employee's employment at Impilo will be phased out and will stop completely in July 2022, after which she will work for DIA. Apparently that doesn't happen. In any case, a Facebook post from August 2023 shows that Impilo continues to value this employee, who also appears as a contact person on Impilo's website.
When Danwatch calls Impilo in January, the receptionist confirms over the phone that the employee is working for the organization again, and when we catch up with the employee at her private home, she tells us that she has been working for DIA until the end of December 2023. She will not comment further to our question.
According to Klaus Josefsen, everything indicates that the DIA's employee has been working twice, which is against the employment regulations.
"In Denmark, you have to disclose double jobs in order to counteract incompatible interests, so this screams to the heavens. There is a direct connection, because the employee works both for those who must have provided children and those who demand the children. In an organization like DIA, there can be no doubt that there are clear rules for this sort of thing, so it must be very surprising", says Klaus Josefsen.
Mess in payments
Another problem that causes the Danish Appeals Board to pull the brakes is the payment of a double salary and a bonus to the employee. In July 2022, the same month that the employment takes effect, DIA will pay the employee salary in two instalments.
DIA writes to the Danish Appeals Board that the former director asked the accounting department to transfer an amount to the employee's account to cover expenses for a home office, but DIA has never received receipts that the money has gone to the purpose. The amount was instead booked as salary, again at the direction of the former director.
DIA has also paid half an extra monthly salary to the employee in December 2022. According to DIA, it is customary in South Africa to pay a bonus in the month of December, but the Appeals Board does not buy it. In November, they make DIA aware that "DIA's employees at home and abroad do not receive salaries or fees other than what is reasonable in relation to the work performed, cf. the point of the accreditation conditions".
Again, DIA's action is causing a stir with Klaus Josefsen.
"The employee has a foot in both Impilo and DIA, and when that person has received double salary for a month, which cannot be accounted for, as well as an unregulated bonus, then there is an obvious risk of abuse", he says.
In December 2023, the many uncertainties about the employment of the South African employee will cause the Board of Appeal to take action.
In a letter to DIA, it is stated that the information has created doubts as to whether DIA's communication work in South Africa takes place in accordance with DIA's accreditation conditions and the Danish and international regulations in the field.
The suspension comes just a month and a half after the DIA received a severe warning for their adoption mediation from Madagascar.
In this connection, Danwatch was able to reveal corruption , illegal support and errors in the children's cases from the island state , which several experts called a breach of the children's rights.
More red lights
For the central source Danwatch has spoken to, several red lights are flashing.
"It is difficult to know why DIA does what they do, but it suggests that the rules on support have changed and that they are trying to circumvent the new rules on support", says the source, referring to the fact that DIA since January 2022, may only give support if the payments are regulated in the rules of the issuing country or are provided to the competent authorities abroad.
“Only the DIA knows why they are acting this way, but there are indications that money is going to Impilo in addition to adoption fees. If that is the case, and at the same time problematic bookkeeping has taken place, then it looks like regular child trafficking", adds the source.
Klaus Josefsen supports:
"I can support that assumption, why the hell else did they do what they did. It looks like they tried to circumvent the rules, which then went completely wrong", says Klaus Josefsen.
Danwatch has asked DIA a large number of questions about the employment of the employee, including whether bonuses are in line with the rule that it is not legal to make money from adoption, whether it is normal practice for DIA to deliberately book expenses under incorrect designations and whether the employee has been working twice.
In an email, DIA's deputy director Torsten Larsen writes that they do not want to comment as long as an investigation is underway. This is out of respect for the ongoing work.
He refers instead to the press release that they have published on their website.