Problems with the agreement between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum
ARTICLE IN PRESSIAN: IS IT TIME TO WITHDRAW SWS’S LICENSE
One of SKAN’s most important tasks is to publish different kinds of texts and arts to raise awareness about adoption.
Our latest article was just published in the Korean magazine Pressian. You can read ??? ?? ??, ?(?)? ?(?)? ?? here.
We would like to thank our friends Chang Seon and Pastor Kim at KoRoot for help with the translation.
While this article mostly was written to inform Koreans about the situation, we also got an English version. We would like to thank our advisor Kate Mun for the proofreading. You can access the article in pdf. Social Welfare Society is breaking the law – final Pressian (1)
rightandwrongdecisions
You can also read the article below!
Social Welfare Society, Inc. is breaking the law. Is it time to withdraw their license?
South Korea is the country that has sent most children for intercountry adoption. It’s unclear exactly how many children, but 200,000 is a number often mentioned. In 2014, 535 children were sent for intercountry adoption. 161 of these children were adopted through Social Welfare Society, Inc. (SWS). In 2013 the numbers were 236 and 90, respectively. The Ministry of Health and Welfare is responsible for supervising whether SWS and the other adoption agencies are following the Special Adoption Act or not.
Almost 10,000 Korean children have been sent to Sweden since the 1960s, and the strongest link between Korea and Sweden is these children. Since 1980 the Korean adoptions are carried out based on an agreement between SWS and Adoptionscentrum (AC, i.e. a Swedish adoption agency).
The Swedish Intercountry Adoptions Authority (MIA) is responsible for checking that adoptions to Sweden are following Swedish law and international conventions.[1] MIA is responsible for deciding if an adoption agency is allowed to carry out adoptions. AC has apply to MIA every second year in order to continue to carry out adoptions. The current agreement between SWS and AC ends on 31st of December 2015.
As the co-ordinator of Swedish Korean Adoptees’ Network (SKAN), I have been invited by MIA to comment on AC’s application to continue their adoptions from SWS. The comments are based on the current agreement between SWS and AC, the audit of SWS carried out by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the MIA report about Korean adoptions. Based on these documents, it’s obvious that SWS is not following the Special Adoption Law, nor the Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Convention). South Korea has not yet ratified the Hague Convention but is aiming to do so soon.
Problems with the agreement between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum
The main problem is that SWS cannot guarantee that Korean law is enforced in Sweden. Most of the conditions regulated in the agreement are the municipality’s responsibility, or is not regulated in Swedish law. Even if some of the conditions are regulated in Swedish law, SWS has no judicial power in Sweden. This means that SWS can’t guarantee that their partner organisation, AC, is following the Special Adoption Law.
Examples of responsibilities that SWS has delegated to AC
Based on the agreement AC is responsible for four following up-reports about the child’s development. These reports should be conducted after a home visit.[2]
According to SFS (2001:453) – Socialtjänstlagen [Social Services Act][3] – it’s the municipality that is responsible for follow ups. A private organisation like AC has no legal right to carry out visits in the adoptee family home.
SWS also requests that AC is responsible for that mandatory post-adoption service specialized for Korean adoptive children should be given to the children. [4]
According to Swedish law AC is not obligated to offer post-adoption services. Even if AC chooses to offer such service, they can’t force adoptive parents to send their children to these services.
Furthermore AC should guarantee that adoptive parents receive pre-training from social workers whom have knowledge in Korean culture and language.[5]
Unlike countries like the US and Germany, Sweden have few Korean immigrants, and therefore we have very few social workers with special understanding in Korean culture and language. Despite the fact that there is a mandatory class for people who want to become adoptive parents, there is nothing in Swedish law regulating the educators offering pre adoption class must have understanding about Korea[6].
SWS also expects AC to provide training course on Korean history and culture for the adoptive parents, networking opportunities with Korean adoptive families and mentoring programs.[7]
From time to time AC has offered meetings for adoptive parents with Korean children. However, AC can’t force adoptive families to come to these meetings in order to guarantee that the adoptive family learn about Korea. Also, even if adoptive parents want to participate at such meetings or attend to such a program, it might be impossible for them to attend because they do not live close by the place there the services are offered.
Finally, SWS requests that AC should offer language support for children that are older than 24 months at the time of departure of Korea.[8]
It’s unclear if the agreement means that it’s the adopted children who should get language support, or if it’s the adoptive parents who should receive the support. However, there are less than 1,000 people in Sweden who speak Korean, so the chances that adoptive families can learn Korean, or that the child can maintain its language are very small. AC has no legal power to make the adoptive parents to bring the adoptive child to a Korean language class, especially not if the adoptee is living far away from a bigger city there most Korean immigrants are living. According to Swedish law the municipality can offer immigrant children, including intercountry adoptees, home language instruction but only after the child has started primary school.
To conclude, SWS has delegated responsibilities to their partner AC without being able to verify that AC is following the agreement.
SWS is violating the Special Adoption Act
In 2014 the Ministry of Health and Welfare audited all three adoption agencies that carry out intercountry adoptions. According to the audit, SWS broke the principle of subsidiarity in 108 cases in 2013–2014. This principle is not only included in Korean law[10], but is also a central principle in the Hague Convention[11]. Since SWS carried out 319 intercountry adoptions during this period of time, it means that they broke the principle of subsidiarity in 34 percent of their intercountry adoptions.
The problem with following the principle of subsidiarity is also noticed by MIA. MIA argues that it’s unclear how the principle is used, and that a formal decision of declaring a child available for international adoption by an authority or court is missing. The lack of such a decision makes it hard to know if SWS has done their utmost in order to find a domestic family before they put up the child for intercountry adoption.[12]
According to the audit, SWS also violated the 7 days waiting period in 41 cases. Mothers are not allowed to give consent for adoption earlier than one week after the birth of the child concerned.[13] Despite this, SWS had the mothers to sign the adoption papers before the child is one week old.[14] In their report, MIA notices that it’s unclear if the unwed moms get unbiased counselling by SWS, or if they are advised to give up their child for adoption too easily.[15] The principle that a child as far as possible has the right to be cared by his or her parents is also emphasized in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), article 7.[16]
Time to withdraw SWS’ licence?
The main idea behind intercountry adoptions is that children who can’t grow up with their biological parents, and who can’t find a good home in the birth country should be put up for intercountry adoption.
As shown in this article, SWS’ adoptions are problematic. First, if SWS can’t guarantee that AC is following the agreement, SWS isn’t fulfilling their duties according to the Special Adoption Act, especially article 21 “Obligations of an adoption agency” and article 25 “Post-adoption services”. Second, the audit shows that SWS also is breaking articles 7 and 13 in the Act.
SKAN shares MIA’s conclusion that “[…] it is to be of outmost importance that South Korea comes to terms with the difficulties and ambiguities which still exists in the adoption process […].”[17] In the agreement between SWS and AC it says: “The agreement is to be absolutely cancelled when: unsavory incident is occured due to insufficient home visits/study and post-adoption services.” [18] Based on this, and the facts that SWS is breaking the Korean law, SKAN urges the Ministry of Health and Welfare to consider withdrawing SWS’ licence to carry out adoptions to Sweden. In case SWS can’t guarantee that partner organisations in other receiving countries are following the adoption agreement, the Ministry of Health and Welfare should also consider withdrawing SWS’ license for carrying out adoptions to these countries.
/ Hanna Sofia Jung Johansson – co-ordinator of Swedish Korean Adoptees’ Network
[1] www.mia.eu (2015-07-02). MIA is an authority under the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.
[2] “Adoption Agreement” between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum (2014-05-30), p. 4.
[3] https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Lagar/Svenskforfattningssamling/Socialtjanstlag-2001453_sfs-2001-453/ (2015-07-02). You can access parts of Social Services Act on http://mia.eu/Global/English/lagengmaj2014.pdf (2015-07-02). Here you can also access parts of Act (1971:796) on International Legal Relations Concerning Adoption.
[4] “Adoption Agreement” between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum (2014-05-30), p. 5.
[5] “Adoption Agreement” between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum (2014-05-30), p. 5.
[6] National Board of Health and Welfare (2015). ”Föräldraskap genom adoption – utbildningsmaterial till föräldrautbildningen” [Parenthood through adoption – readings for the education for parents]. Available on http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/publikationer2015/2015-1-2 (2015-06-22).
[7] “Adoption Agreement” between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum (2014-05-30), p. 5.
[8] “Adoption Agreement” between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum (2014-05-30), p. 5.
[9] “Adoption Agreement” between Social Welfare Society, Inc. and Adoptionscentrum (2014-05-30), p. 5.
[10] Special Adoption Act “Article 7: Priority on domestic adoption”.
[11] “The Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption”. Available on http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.text&cid=69 (2015-07-26).
[12] Swedish Intercountry Adoptions Authority (2014). ”Rapport from MIA:s tillsynsresa till Sydkorea 2–8 mars 2014” [“Report from MIA’s inspection in South Korea 2–8 March 2014], pp. 5 & 7.
[13] Special Adoption Act “Article 13: Consent requirements, etc.”.
[14] Hankook Ilbo (2014-09-01).
‘”???? ?? ??’ ?? ?? ?????” [Social Welfare Society is violating the domestic adoption first principle in the Special Adoption Act.] http://www.hankookilbo.com/v/6b7a5d71bfaa4b5b9d645f8693077630 (accessed on 2015-07-26).
[15] Swedish Intercountry Adoptions Authority (2014). ”Rapport from MIA:s tillsynsresa till Sydkorea 2–8 mars 2014” [“Report from MIA’s inspection in South Korea 2–8 March 2014], p 6.
[16] UNCRC Article 7. The UNCRC is available on http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx (2015-07-27). The current Social democratic–Green government aims to include the UNCRC in Swedish law, and therefore it’s important for the government that the Convention is respected. Reference: http://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/barnkonventionen-ska-bli-lag (2014-11-03) [The UNCRC is going to be included in Swedish law].
[17] Swedish Intercountry Adoptions Authority (2014). ”Rapport from MIA:s tillsynsresa till Sydkorea 2–8 mars 2014” [“Report from MIA’s inspection in South Korea 2–8 March 2014], p. 53.
[18] “Adoption Agreement” between Adoptionscentrum and Social Welfare Society, Inc. (2014-05-30), p. 6.