”International adoption mediation is, in my view, no longer a sustainable solution for children as a group and it is not possible to guarantee that irregularities do not occur in the countries Sweden collaborates with. My proposal is that mediation of children across national borders ceases”, writes Anna Singer on DN Debatt.
On the other hand, she suggests, it should be possible to adopt “known children where there is a personal relationship between the child and the one who wants to adopt, in the same manner as applies to national adoption”.
Demands apology
, professor of civil law, notes that irregularities have occurred in international adoption activities, including child trafficking.
She wants the Swedish state to acknowledge that human rights have been violated in connection with international adoptions – and apologizes.
On Monday, she presents her investigation and a long list of her other proposals to the government. Among them, the establishment of a national resource center and that grants for travel to the country of origin are offered to internationally adopted.
Singer has previously, in the autumn, stated that the commission will not propose a ban on international adoptions.
It was the then S-MP government that appointed the adoption commission in the autumn of 2021 to investigate irregularities within international adoption activities, which have occurred in Sweden since the 1950s.
Stolen from parents
This against the background of primarily DN’s revelations how adopted children from countries such as Chile, China, and South Korea were stolen from their biological parents in the 1970s and 1980s.
A criminal investigation in Chile has shown that hundreds of suspected victims of illegal adoptions between the 1970s and 1990s ended up in Sweden.
In 2023, 73 children arrived in Sweden for adoption purposes via Swedish adoption organizations. This can be compared to 941 children in 2005, according to The Authority for Family Law and Parental Support.
Several other countries, including the Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark, have since earlier paused or restricted international adoptions.
