The Board of Appeal and Shejar Chhaya

The TV2 documentary "The Danish children from India" may give rise to a number of questions about adoption from the Shejar Chhaya orphanage and an investigation that the Appeals Board launched in 2014. Here you can see our answers.

Briefly about the process

• 2005 AC Børnehjælp terminates the cooperation with Shejar Chhaya due to a lack of development in the quality of the work.
• 2014 Media coverage of problems with adoptions by Shejar Chhaya from 2004 to 2008.
• 2014 The Danish Appeals Board initiates an investigation into Danish adoption cases from the orphanage in the period from 2004-2005

Have we done enough on the matter?

Our possibilities as a supervisory authority to assess whether there have been irregularities or unethical conditions with a Danish organisation's former partner are limited when the collaboration - as in this case - has ended several years ago.

We assess that with the survey in 2014 we fulfilled our role as a supervisory authority.

• We asked AC Children's Aid to send us all cases about children that AC Children's Aid had taken home from the orphanage from 2004 to 2005.
• AC Children's Aid interrupted the cooperation with Shejar Chhaya in 2005, and we therefore asked in 2014 for more information about the background for the interruption.
• We asked AC Children's Aid to contact the orphanage to investigate the possibilities of obtaining documents about the children's release for adoption.
• AC Children's Aid contacted the manager of the orphanage by telephone with clarifying questions in relation to the children's background papers. AC Children's Aid also stated that contact with the orphanage had been difficult.
• AC Children's Aid therefore investigated the cases in more detail with the assistance of the lawyer who had been in charge of the proceedings at the Mumbai High Court. We were told that release documents in India were considered confidential, that they belonged to the court that decided the case, and that they were not available to Indian or other authorities, which is not unusual.

We had no reason to doubt the information.

We did not receive inquiries from families or adoptees about suspicions that there had been irregularities in their adoption case.

Based on the review of the cases and the other information, we assessed that nothing illegal had immediately occurred in the cases.

Can the adoptees get help to find more information?

The mediating organization (DIA) is responsible for helping the adoptive families who want to search for information about the adoptee's background if they have adopted through Glemte Børn, AC Børnehjælp or DanAdopt.

The Danish Appeals Board can basically only help to guide the adoptees and their families as to where in the issuing country they can turn to, if the adoptees or the adoptive families suspect that there have been irregularities in the processing of their case in the issuing country.

Why can the adopted receive more information in the cases than the Danish authorities?

In adoption cases, there will always be more information about the adoptees in the issuing country than the receiving country needs and must have provided in connection with the processing of the adoption case. It is the issuing country that decides which additional documents can be handed over to the adopted person. For example, the authority in the donor country can give greater weight to the biological parents' desire for anonymity than the adoptee's right to know his parentage.

The documents that the adoptees and their families can get when they travel to the issuing country are the issuing country's documents, over which the Danish Appeals Board has no control.

If the adoptees wish to find out more information about their background, they can contact the DIA, who can advise them.

Why do we decide in 2014 to investigate AC Children's Aid's collaboration with the Indian orphanage Shejar Chhaya?

Several media reported in 2014 that there had been problems at the Shejar Chhaya orphanage in the period 2004 to 2008. We decided to find out what had happened more precisely.

AC Children's Aid had collaborated with the orphanage. Therefore, we asked AC Children's Aid to send us all cases on children that AC Children's Aid had taken home from the orphanage from 2004 to 2005, when the collaboration ended.

Why did AC Children's Aid stop working with the orphanage?

AC Children's Aid broke off the collaboration in 2005 with Shejar Chhaya. According to the statement, AC Children's Aid did not terminate the cooperation due to suspicion of irregularities in specific cases. The cooperation was terminated because the orphanage did not want to cooperate in developing the quality of the work; among other things by continuously informing about the cases and getting better documentation, greater transparency and in-depth information about the children's background. AC Children's Aid had also pointed out that the staff should be further trained and that there should be an improvement in the care of the children. AC Children's Aid did not experience the requested development and improvement.

In 2014, we are investigating the adoption of 30 children to Denmark from the orphanage in the period 2004-2005 - what came of it?

We assessed that nothing illegal had immediately happened in the cases, and that AC Children's Aid had not acted contrary to the accreditation conditions they had. We came to that conclusion after a review of AC Children's Aid's cases from Shejar Chhaya from 2004 to 2005.

We also asked the organization to investigate the possibilities of obtaining documents about the children's release for adoption. Those documents were not on the files, but it was not a requirement at the time either. AC Children's Aid investigated the cases further and explained that release documents in India were considered confidential. The documents belonged to the court that had decided the adoption case. The documents were not available to Indian or other authorities.

Therefore, overall, we found no reason to do more, nor did we receive any inquiries from involved parties that something wrong had happened.

Why are we not contacting adoptive parents and adopters in 2014?

It is part of the Board of Appeal's work to review adoption cases. We also did this at the survey in 2014. We obtain the cases from the intermediary organization that we supervise; not from the adoptive parents.

The Danish Appeals Board considers in each and every case whether there are special circumstances that mean that we must inform the covered persons that we are processing their information.

What is the role of the Appeals Board?

The Board of Appeal must supervise the mediation of adoption to Denmark and that an intermediary adoption organization complies with the Hague Convention on international adoption and other legislation.

The Danish Appeals Board's supervision therefore applies to the organisation's active collaborations.

If, as part of the supervision, we receive information that causes us to react, we can, among other things, refuse to approve a collaboration or approve an existing collaboration again. We may also refuse to allow a specific case of adoption to continue, and we may ask the organization or relevant authorities for more information.

When it comes to international adoptions, the Danish Appeals Board, as the central authority, can also become aware that there may have been irregularities in the communication from a previous and now terminated collaboration.

There are no international or Danish rules or roadmaps for how the authorities should handle this kind of situation, but ISS (International Social Service) calls on the authorities to assist and support the adoptee, the adoptive family and the biological family.

If we become aware of such cases, we will try to obtain information and assess what we can do. This applies both as a central authority and in our role of supervising.

If we receive an inquiry about irregularities in a specific case from a family or an adoptee, we will guide and help the person in question to get in touch with the relevant authority or authorities in the donor country to obtain more information about their adoption and any. irregularities.

Have the rules changed?

The Danish Appeals Board has limited options in cases where the adoption has been carried out in e.g. 1980s or 00s. Here it can be difficult for us to clarify whether there may have been irregularities or unethical conditions on the part of the foreign partner.

It is a very unfortunate situation if children have been adopted out on false grounds. Therefore, today there are very fixed rules and procedures for international adoption mediation to protect the child and guide the biological family.

The adoption mediation to Denmark was previously subject to completely different rules than today, and there were not necessarily the same documents in the cases as today. And not the same degree of control either.

In both India and Denmark, major changes have taken place in adoption mediation. In India, new legislation has been introduced, a centralization of the adoption agency and more control and supervision of the orphanages.

In Denmark, with the amendment to the Adoption Act on 1 January 2016, stricter supervision was also introduced for the mediation of adoption to Denmark. Today, therefore, it is always the Danish authorities who assess whether an adoption can continue in cases of matching a child from another country.

Today, the Danish mediating organization and the Danish authorities in cases of matching a child from India receive a copy of the Indian authorities' decision to release the child for adoption.