Swedes adopted in Chile can receive compensation

On Tuesday, the Chilean lower house voted through a resolution regarding the thousands of suspected illegal adoptions from the country.

136 members voted for the resolution and only one member voted against.

The decision means that the left-wing president Gabriel Boric will establish a truth and reparations commission for internationally adopted and families of origin who have suffered from irregularities linked to adoptions from the 1950s until the turn of the millennium.

In a parliamentary inquiry from 2019, the Chilean lower house established that children had been stolen from their parents and adopted away to countries in the Western world – including to Sweden.

The investigation said that networks of social workers, judges, healthcare professionals and adoption agencies had acted in concert “with the aim of confiscating minors, especially if their mothers were in a vulnerable situation”.

Since 2018, a Chilean criminal investigation into suspected illegal adoptions has also been ongoing. More than 640 cases concern adoptions to Sweden.

For DN, Swedish adoptees and their families of origin have previously testified to false death certificates after births, abduction of children from temporary nurseries and home confiscation.

Boris Barrera (Communist Party of Chile) is a member of the Chilean lower house that on Tuesday voted through the resolution. “We are extremely happy,” he said at a press conference after the vote.

Photo: Alexander Mahmoud

In October 2021, then Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren (S) appointed a state adoption commission that will “clarify the existence of possible irregularities within Sweden’s international adoption operations”.

Chile is one of six countries which is to be scrutinized, the investigator Anna Singer has stated for DN. Tuesday’s Chilean decision goes a step further: No country has previously investigated compensation for people suspected of having fallen victim to illegal adoptions.

Anna Bohrn is secretary of the Swedish association Chileadoption, which drives opinion on the issue of adoption. She believes that the decision means a lot to the Chilean mothers who have lost their children.