The adoption system needs a basic investigation - not a lifeline

In the Netherlands, on 8 February 2021, the so-called Joustra report , prepared by the Committee for the Study of International Adoption for the Ministry of Legal Protection, was published . The report presents studies of adoptions to the Netherlands from 23 countries with emphasis on the period 1967-1998 and special focus on adoptions from Bangladesh, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Colombia and Indonesia.

The conclusions speak for themselves: In all countries, irregularities and systematic blackmail of mothers and child trafficking have been identified - even after the introduction of the Hague Convention in 1998 - a convention whose main purpose is otherwise to ensure that international adoptions are carried out on a legal and ethically sound basis. .

The report has led the Netherlands to impose a temporary ban on adoption applicants, and it has not yet been decided whether the country will definitively shut down the placement of foreign children into childless families.

The Swedish government has just decided to conduct a similar study of adoptions to the country from the 1960s to the 1990s. The study also aims to account for the responsibilities of Swedish intermediary organizations and the state in any illegalities.

The background for the government decision is, among other things, an ongoing investigation in Chile, which shows that thousands of adoptions of Chilean children to Sweden and other countries have been made on an illegal basis, with false papers and without parental consent. In addition, adult Swedish adoptees via the association chileadoption.se, among others, have worked for years through various media channels to inform the public about the systematic fraud within adoption.

Denmark and international adoption

International adoption has existed in Denmark since the 1950s and was put into a system up through the 1960s; it is thus a practice that has existed for over 60 years, and since the 1970s, around 22,000 people have been adopted to Denmark. But despite national and international regulation, the adoption system in Denmark has also been characterized by questionable methods from the beginning. This applies right from the first private adoptions from Germany outside the authorities over the 'breeding' of children with adoption in mind in Sri Lanka to the use of 'child harvesters' in Ethiopia.

The extent of erroneous and illegal practices in adoption mediation has proven to be so great that the cases can not only be dismissed as individual cases, but testify to fundamental problems in the mediation structure.

This has already been uncovered in countries like Bangladesh , Sri Lanka , Korea , India , Colombia , Chile , Nepal and Ethiopia . Often it is the adult adoptees who return to their countries of origin and discover that none of WHAT is written in their papers is true. When they then organize, they discover that they are far from the only ones who have been exposed to it, and that adoption fraud has taken place on a larger scale.

Nevertheless, the intermediary organizations, representatives of adoptees and the authorities have been remarkably reluctant to investigate the adoption scandals of recent years, and we still need to uncover the role of Danish private and public actors in violating the rights of adoptees. We also need to establish a legal responsibility for proven illegalities. Today, having a stolen or trafficked child for adoption has no consequences.

Rescue of the adoption system in Denmark

Unfortunately, it seems that such a study has long prospects, as the current government is actively working to continue and expand the adoption system.

In Denmark, the number of applicants for international adoption has been falling sharply in recent years. As a result, the system for the placement of foreign children for adoption, run by the private organization Danish International Adoption (DIA), is no longer economically viable and last year was close to collapse. That is why the DIA had to shut down new applicants for adoption for nine months. In preparation for a reform of the Adoption Act, the National Board of Appeal published the report The International Adoption Agency in Denmark in December 2019 , which outlines a number of alternatives to the continuation of the adoption system.

On the basis of the National Board of Appeal's report, the Danish authorities are currently considering a merger of the dissemination of international adoptions and national forced adoptions. It is planned that the dissemination of all adoptions in the future will be handled by DIA, which the organization itself has suggested in previous consultation responses. One thus tries to support the DIA financially by using the organization as a tool in the government's social policy efforts, which must be said to be far removed from running an international adoption agency.

Participating in the ongoing negotiations on the revision of the Adoption Act are also representatives from DIA, who thus as a private actor help to ensure its own survival by being able to participate in the preparation of the government's aggressive social policy, whose purpose is to force separate separated vulnerable children. from their families permanently.

With the presentation "The Child First", the government - supported by emotional arguments and cheeky videos on social media - proposes a sharp increase in the number of forced adoptions of children from vulnerable families. The National Board of Appeal has already contacted applicants for international adoption and proposed that they switch to applying for a Danish child, as an increase in the number of Danish adoptions is expected this year.

The system does not need to be rescued

It goes without saying that it is not justifiable to continue an international adoption practice in the light of the circumstances that have been uncovered over the years. The report from the Netherlands clearly shows that a system based on the exchange of money and people across borders cannot be handled in a reassuring way by private actors. And the examples of irregularities and illegalities are simply too many to close one's eyes and continue the system as before.

Denmark should instead follow in the footsteps of the Netherlands and Sweden and carry out an in-depth, independent study of the transnational adoption system from the 1950s to the present, with a focus on uncovering irregularities and illegalities. Only when such an investigation has been carried out is it possible to determine whether there is any basis at all for a continuation of the adoption of foreign children to Denmark. In continuation of this, a system for placing legal responsibility for illegal adoptions should be established.

Trying to save an ailing international adoption system by supporting DIA financially and letting the organization take over the dissemination of Danish forced adoptions is a step in the completely wrong direction that benefits neither the transnationally adopted nor Danish vulnerable families.

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