DIA ceases to provide international adoption assistance
DIA is initiating a controlled winding down of its work as a mediator of international adoptions. DIA's board decided this at an extraordinary board meeting based on an assessment of the current framework for finances and supervision as well as a number of new sanctions from the Danish Appeals Agency and the Ministry of Social Affairs.
The Danish Appeals Board supervises DIA and approves all adoptions to Denmark. It is now up to the agency to organize the further process in the area of adoption - a process that is described in advance in a contingency plan.
As part of the plan, DIA can assist the Danish Appeals Agency during a transition period to ensure that existing knowledge about adoption and archives with information about the adoptee's identity are not lost.
"It is a difficult decision for the board of DIA 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. We hope that the transition in the long term will create greater clarity about roles and responsibilities for the benefit of children who do not have the opportunity to grow up in their biological family or their home country, as well as clarity for, in the words of the Prime Minister in the New Year's speech, future mothers and fathers, families in all colors of the rainbow , which carries around a homeless love," says deputy chairman Anne Friis from DIA's board.
On Friday, the Danish Appeals Board informed DIA that the agency is recommending to the Minister of Social Affairs to stop mediation from DIA's largest mediation country, South Africa, after more than 20 years of cooperation. Yesterday, Monday, the Ministry of Social Affairs' department announced that DIA's five other country agreements will be suspended for a period. There are currently 36 applicants (couples/singles) on the waiting list in six countries.
"Trust and support are absent. We take the consequence of that based on a principle of propriety. DIA will assist the Board of Appeal in fulfilling the obligations and tasks that the situation entails in the short term. At the same time, we call for a unified, politically viable solution to the central issue; what does Denmark want in the area of international adoption and how can international adoption continue to be an opportunity to form a family for the children's good?" says Anne Friis.
Facts and background:
The adoption agency in Denmark is partially user-paid. This means that the ongoing closures of mediation countries, which the Danish Appeals Board under the Ministry of Social Affairs has carried out, have major consequences for the financial sustainability of adoption mediation.
DIA's decision must also be seen in the light of recent years' developments in the field of international adoption in Denmark. The number of international adoptions to Denmark was, for example, 418 in 2010, while the figure for the past three years has been 20-40 adoptions annually.
It has been 60 years since the first private organization received permission from the state to carry out adoption mediation. From the mid-1970s until 2010, 400,500 children were adopted to Denmark annually.
In 2015, DIA was created through a merger of AC Children's Aid and DanAdopt. DIA's option for adoption mediation and so-called Post Adoption Services (PAS) has been regulated through an accreditation agreement that has been continually renewed by the supervisory authority, the Danish Appeals Agency, which is also responsible for approving each cooperation country. and each individual adoption.
As part of the accreditation agreement, a contingency plan has been drawn up if DIA itself, the Minister of Social Affairs or a political majority in Christiansborg decide that DIA's work must cease. The plan must ensure a handover to the Danish Appeals Board, and it must balance the many considerations for children, adoptees on the waiting list, finances, archive of adoption cases and, not least, ongoing cases about family formation.
Contact the board for the press via Torsten Larsen, deputy director, DIA, tel. 44 14 65 02. Mail: tl@di a.dk