Kristersson betrayed the stolen children
Kristersson betrayed the stolen children
Kajsa Ekis Ekman about the M-leader's responsibility in the adoption scandal: did not stop trading
This is a cultural article that is part of Aftonbladet's opinion journalism.
Xiao Chaohua, who lost her son outside a store in 2007, shows photos of wanted children on her van. Chinese children are kidnapped and sold for adoption - including Sweden.
PHOTO: AP
Xiao Chaohua, who lost her son outside a store in 2007, shows photos of wanted children on her van. Chinese children are kidnapped and sold for adoption - including Sweden.
CULTUREtoday 09:57
It was during the first half of the 21st century that children began to disappear without trace in Hunan Province in China . A child who was playing in the alley outside his house was suddenly gone to never be seen again. A father told me he was waiting for a bus stop with his two month old daughter, when a bunch of men ran out of government, demanding him for marriage, and when he had nothing, they pushed the daughter and disappeared. He never saw her again.
Most commonly, however, were that representatives of the state openly confiscated children. Officials made home visits to parents who had more than one child and demanded that they pay large sums or leave the youngest child.
How many children have been kidnapped in this way, there are no official figures - some sources speak about 22,000. Parents have protested and wrote petitions and many still refuse to give up their search for their children with divorces and unemployment as a consequence.
Ulf Kristersson was chairman of Sweden's largest adoption broker, Adoptionscentrum, 2003-2005.
PHOTO: URBAN ANDERSSON
In 2005, the truth was finally discovered when some of the perpetrators were brought to justice. 27 people were detained and ten were convicted of trafficking in human beings, including the head of a orphanage. It turned out that the children had been stolen to be sold for adoption. Among other things, to Sweden. And chairman of the Adoption Center at that time, Sweden's largest adoption broker, was the current moderate leader Ulf Kristersson .
Four children stolen by the league were adopted in accordance with the protocol of justice to Sweden through the FFIA, an adoption broker who no longer exists.
During the time of Kristersson, the Adoptions Center also sent seven children from the Hengyang Children's Home, whose chief and six employees were sentenced to jail for both buying stolen children and selling them to other orphans. This children's home regularly referred to children as "goods", introduced children as "importers" and adopted children as "exports" according to investigative journalist Pang Jiaoming who has written a book about this.
The Adoption Center also communicated 33 children from Changsha's orphanage, a regular customer to the traffickers whose manager also bought a limousine for them as a thank you . In addition, 14 children from Changde, also involved in child trafficking. The Adoption Center also conveyed a child from the Shaoyang Children's Home, whose chief co-operated with police and officials to take children from poor parents who violated one-child policy. The children's friends, another Swedish adoption broker, also conveyed 21 children from orphanages who had been clients of the league.
The scandal had enormous consequences in China, but also in recipient countries like the United States and the Netherlands. The head of the Dutch largest adoption agency, Wereldkinderen - the Dutch counterparty's Dutch counterparty - resigned when it appeared that several of the children were adopted to Holland.
But in Sweden, the scandal with the stolen children in Hunan Province has hardly ever been mentioned. Kristersson has not received a single public question about her role in stolen children may have come to Sweden. Very strange in a country where prospective prime ministers usually get all their receipts, rental cars and sambos reviewed.
During Kristersson's time as chairman of the Adoption Center, 2003-2005, adoptions from China grew to the United States, Europe and Sweden. China became the country that the Adoption Center conveyed the most children from around 250 a year. China was popular: waiting times were short, children were usually healthy and they had no birth certificates when almost everyone was stated as "found".
Child smugglers who were convicted of kidnapping 38 children in Dongguan in 2005.
PHOTO: AP
To Swedish couples, the Adoption Center conveyed the image of a China where girls were abandoned in quantities when the Chinese families were said to be preferred sons. And, of course, there were also many abandoned children, but not enough to meet the growing demand from the West. The traffickers and corrupt officials who were able to earn extra to meet that demand had an unbeatable tool in their hand: one-child policy.
One-child policy implied forced sterilization, forced abortions, and that the family still receiving more than one child had to apply for permission and pay fines to the state. During the 1990s, those who had no money could get rid of a goat, a pig or even get the property confiscated or demolished. In the 21st century this changed, as more and more orphanages were joined to the state international adoption system. From now on, civil servants no longer took a pig to punish those who violated one-child policy. Instead, they took the child.
Children's homes could then buy children for about SEK 3,700 a piece. Swedish and Western foreign adoption organizations then paid 10,000-50,000 kronor per child, making it an extremely lucrative business.
The children's homes established fake papers where it was usually stated that the children were filed anonymously outside the orphanage or found in a public place. This way, there was another necessity for an adoption to be conducted in China, namely the parents' signature. Instead, the children received a new name and were then adopted for a new name. How many of those who have been adopted to Sweden are therefore impossible to know.
When Swedish authorities get to know the case, 2006, it's all they do to belong to the Chinese dictatorship. The answer they receive from the Chinese adoption authority CCAA is that "it is forbidden to sell children in China. If you follow the law, there are no problems with child trafficking. "They also get assurance that all children who came to Sweden" are truly abandoned. "(All countries asked were given the exact same answer.)
As for the four children that can be traced when their names appear in the trial protocol, MIA (then the International Adoption Authority, currently MFoF), decides that "no further information about the children or their families will be released". You say you want to "protect the children and their families," as the Chinese authorities do not intend to claim back the children.
Swedish authorities thus violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to which all children are entitled to knowledge of their origin. And while they do not get permission from China to go to Hunan and investigate, they allow the adoptions to continue.
What did Ulf Kristersson know? We have no idea, but it was his responsibility to make sure that the adoptions were right. When I talk to Lan Stuy from the China Research Center, she says that "adoption agencies should definitely have known what was going on. The question is if they wanted to know more. "
Lan Stuy reports that Chinese authorities regularly detained traffickers. The same mafia sentenced in 2006 was arrested in 1999 and 2003 for selling children, but released. There were also other reasons for Kristersson to make suspicions. One such was that the number of children in Changsha's orphanage rose by 242 percent , a common sign that something is wrong. A lot of parents rarely decide at the same time to abandon their children just when international adoptions begin.
Ulf Kristersson was a very active chairman of the Adoption Center. He participated in the community debate on adoption, had close contact with families and countries of origin, and worked for homosexual couples to be able to adopt. However, concern for child trafficking has not been a priority for Kristersson.
In 2003, the State Examination Adoption came - at what price? (SOU 2003: 49), which proposed a tightening of adoption rules to avoid trafficking in children. One suggestion was to limit the payment for children. The investigation meant that what the Adoption Center called for "aid activities" gave incentives to orphanages to provide illegally for children. The investigation would therefore establish a clear dividing line between adoption and aid activities.
Instead of welcoming the proposal, Kristersson initiated a massive counter campaign. In newspapers, debates and referral, he expressed the opinion that it would be practically impossible for Swedish adoptions if you no longer had to pay a daycare home. "All the major countries of origin would disappear," he wrote in an article on DN Debate : "Of the barely 700 children who had Swedish parents through us last year, 37 children would have come to Sweden if the investigation's proposal was a team."
Although organizations representing children's rights wanted to stop the payment for orphans, the government chose to go on the Kristersson line. In the bill, the proposal was gone. One more comment, Kristersson had the information about child trafficking: "There is a right brutal world out there."
KAJSA EKIS EKMAN
August 20, 201809:57
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