Latest news with #AnnaSinger
Epoch Times
2 days ago
- General
- Epoch Times
Sweden Urged to Halt International Adoptions After Decades of Child Trafficking Uncovered
A Swedish government commission has recommended halting all international adoptions after an investigation found that decades of illegal adoptions amounted to child trafficking involving state authorities and adoption agencies. At a press conference in Stockholm, Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson Gronvall told the Swedish language Epoch Times on June 2: '[There are] appalling cases of deficient background information, and even children simply being stolen from their parents.' 'There has been an unreasonable level of trust in the governments of the countries of origin for the children adopted to Sweden.' According to roughly 60,000 people have been adopted into Sweden. It started with children from South Korea in the 1950s, and then grew to include China, Chile, Ethiopia, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, peaking in the mid 1970-1980s. By the early 2000s, the numbers began to steadily decline. Amid growing concerns that adopted children may have been taken from their biological parents illegally, the commission found confirmed cases of child trafficking spanning every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s. Head of the inquiry Anna Singer, professor of civil law, told The Epoch Times that this practice is 'winding down by itself.' Related Stories 6/3/2025 6/3/2025 'Last year, 54 children were adopted to Sweden [from abroad]. ... Many countries have ceased putting children up for intercountry adoption.' 'Adoption agencies are not a sustainable solution for meeting the needs of these children,' she added. 'It's better to try to improve conditions in their countries of origin. Intercountry adoption may have worked to slow down such efforts.' China in the Spotlight The final two-volume report It said that all children adopted from China were described as abandoned and lacked any background history, making it difficult, or impossible, to assess whether the adoptions were in the child's best interest. 'Chinese authorities have confirmed that four adoptions to Sweden were linked to the systematic child trafficking in Hunan that was exposed in 2005. However, it cannot be ruled out that more Swedish adoptions are affected by the child trafficking in China,' it said. Financial incentives were created, as orphanages in China received compensation of $3,000 to $5,000 per child placed for international adoption. The Swedish supervisory authority found that the orphanages were dependent on these fees. In total, just under 4,300 adoptions from China have been carried out to date, making China the fourth-largest country of origin for adoptions to Sweden in terms of total numbers. Most adoptions occurred during the period 2000–2010, when more than 3,200 children were adopted from China to Sweden. China is one of the few countries that approved adoption of young children to single adoptive parents. The report also In many cases, signed documentation from biological parents was missing, even when those parents were known. Files also often lacked critical details needed for adoptees to understand their origins. 'Ultimately, it is the Swedish State that has failed to protect the rights of children in intercountry adoption activities. This means that the State must take responsibility for what has happened and take measures to ensure that it does not happen again,' the report said. It recommended an official apology to adopted people and their families as well as providing financial aid to help those who have been adopted to travel to their country of origin. The Netherlands said in December it would phase out international adoptions over the next six years, after an official 2021 report found that children had been stolen or bought from their birth parents in cases going back to the 1960s. Switzerland said in January it also plans to end international adoptions, amid similar concerns of abuse. Epoch Times reporter Roger Sahlström, Reuters, and Press Association contributed to this report.
Business Recorder
2 days ago
- General
- Business Recorder
Swedish probe suggests banning international adoptions
STOCKHOLM: A probe ordered by the Swedish government recommended banning international adoptions Monday, citing serious irregularities spanning decades. Children have been brought to Sweden after being put up for adoption by people who weren't their parents or after being wrongly declared dead, Anna Singer, who led the inquiry, told reporters. 'In some cases, they have also been given up by parents who did not understand the implications of consenting to international adoption,' Singer said, as she handed her report to Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson Gronvall. There had also been 'confirmed cases of child trafficking in every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, primarily in the context of private adoptions', Singer said. About 10 cases of trafficking had been reported over the years, including from Sri Lanka and Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s, Poland in the 1990s and China in the 1990s and 2000s, she said. The probe also showed the government had been aware of these irregularities 'very early on'. About 60,000 people in Sweden have been adopted from abroad, according to the Family Law and Parental Support Authority (MFoF).
CTV News
3 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Swedish inquiry finds abuse and fraud in international adoptions dating back decades
Anna Singer, a Swedish expert leading the country's investigation into its international adoption practices, speaks during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, March 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, file) STOCKHOLM — STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Swedish commission recommended Monday that international adoptions be stopped after an investigation found a series of abuses and fraud dating back decades. Sweden is the latest country to examine its international adoption policies after allegations of unethical practices, particularly in South Korea. The commission was formed in 2021 following a report by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter detailing Sweden's problematic international adoption system. Monday's recommendations were sent to Minister of Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall, who said her department would review the report. 'The assignment was to investigate whether there had been irregularities that the Swedish actors knew about, could have done and actually did,' Anna Singer, a legal expert and the head of the commission, told a news conference. 'And actors include everyone who has had anything to do with international adoption activities. 'It includes the government, the supervisory authority, organization, municipalities and courts. The conclusion is that there have been irregularities in the international adoptions to Sweden.' The commission called on the government to formally apologize to adoptees and their families. Investigators found confirmed cases of child trafficking in every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, including from Sri Lanka, Colombia, Poland and China. Singer said that a public apology, beside being important for those who are personally affected, can help raise awareness about the violations because there is a tendency to downplay the existence and significance of the abuses. An Associated Press investigation, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), last year reported dubious child-gathering practices and fraudulent paperwork involving South Korea's foreign adoption program, which peaked in the 1970s and '80s amid huge Western demands for babies. The AP and Frontline spoke with more than 80 adoptees in the U.S., Australia and Europe and examined thousands of pages of documents to reveal evidence of kidnapped or missing children ending up abroad, fabricated child origins, babies switched with one another and parents told their newborns were gravely sick or dead, only to discover decades later they had been sent to new parents overseas. The findings are challenging the international adoption industry, which was built on the model created in South Korea. In March, South Korea's truth commission concluded that the government bears responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse, driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children's backgrounds and origins. The Netherlands last year announced it would no longer allow its citizens to adopt from abroad. Denmark's only international adoption agency said it was shutting down, and Switzerland apologized for failing to prevent illegal adoptions. France released a scathing assessment of its own culpability. South Korea has sent around 200,000 children to the West for adoptions in the past six decades, with more than half of them placed in the U.S. Along with France and Denmark, Sweden has been a major European destination of South Korean children, adopting nearly 10,000 of them since the 1960s.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Sweden urged to ban international adoption after damning inquiry findings
Sweden should ban international adoption and apologise after thousands of children were illegally and unethically taken from their home countries including South Korea, Colombia, China and Sri Lanka over several decades, a government inquiry has found. Presenting the damning findings of the almost four-year investigation, the head of the inquiry, Anna Singer, accused the Swedish state of 'violations of human rights', citing child-trafficking cases spanning from the 1970s to the 2000s. Some children were adopted without voluntary and informed consent while thousands of others were taken to Sweden with false documents. Often, authorities did not have signed documentation showing consent from the biological parents, even if their identities were known. International adoptions to Sweden started in the 1950s and continue today. Overall, more than 60,000 children have been adopted from countries around the world. Other affected countries included Chile, Thailand, Vietnam, Poland, Ethiopia and Russia. Singer said on Monday: 'There have been irregularities in international adoptions to Sweden. There are confirmed cases of child-trafficking during every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, mainly in individual and private adoptions.' She added: 'Children have also in many cases been adopted without voluntary and informed consent from their parents.' Some children had falsely been declared dead, she said, others were handed over for adoption by people who were not their parents and some parents did not understand the meaning of consenting to intercountry adoption. 'The state needs to acknowledge the violations of human rights that have occurred in the international adoption process and the consequences it has had for adoptees and their families, and ask for forgiveness,' she said. The investigation found the government had previously been aware of irregularities in international adoptions. On the basis of her findings, Singer said, Sweden should stop international adoption. Her other recommendations included: a national resource centre for adopted people and adoption issues that offered support; and a travel allowance of 15,000 SEK (£1,160) for victims to travel to their country of origin. Going forward, Singer recommended that cross-border adoption should only be permitted when there was a personal relationship between the applicant and child. 'The state should take greater responsibility for ensuring that an adoption is in the best interests of the child and that the process is legally secure,' the report said. The government has not yet said whether it will take up the recommendations. The adoption commission was appointed in October 2021 by the then social affairs minister, Lena Hallengren, after the newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) published an investigation that showed how children from poor families in other countries had been stolen from their biological parents to be adopted in Sweden. Matilda Hanson, DN's deputy managing editor who led the newspaper's investigation in 2021, said Sweden had 'systemically authorised adoptions, based on falsified documentation from dictatorships around the world'. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion She said: 'We discovered child kidnapping, we discovered fraud, we discovered politicians knowing or getting warnings throughout the years and not acting on them.' It was important to their sources, Hanson said, that Swedish society acknowledged what had happened and apologised. She added that many believed there should be reparations so that they could find their birth parents and investigate their own histories: 'A lot of our sources say this would mean a lot to them.' At its peak, in 1977, 1,776 children were internationally adopted that year into Sweden. Although numbers have fallen since, international adoptions continue. Last year 54 children were adopted internationally through an authorised organisation. Elsewhere in Europe, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark have stopped or restricted international adoptions. Sweden's social affairs minister, Camilla Waltersson Grönvall, said the findings represented 'a failure'. 'If adoptions are to remain in Sweden, it must also be possible to guarantee security and legal certainty around this,' she told the broadcaster SVT. 'It is important that we quickly begin a process that must be characterised by great transparency and an important dialogue with all parties involved.' The Guardian has contacted the minister for comment.
Euronews
4 days ago
- Politics
- Euronews
Government investigator calls on Sweden to halt international adoption
Results of a government probe into Sweden's adoption practices prompted its lead investigator to call for a halt to all international adoptions, domestic media reported. "There have been irregularities in the international adoptions to Sweden," Anna Singer, the head of the Swedish Adoption Commission, said during a press conference on Monday, during which she handed over the findings of the investigation to Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson. "Today, with increased respect for children's rights, we cannot accept the levels of risk that this activity is and has been associated with." During the probe, investigators have discovered confirmed cases of child trafficking and illegal adoptions in every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s. The commission recommended that the Swedish state acknowledge violations of human rights and formally apologise to adoptees and their families. It also proposed that Sweden gradually phase out its international adoption activity and introduce long-term support for adoptees and their families. Minister Waltersson said the Swedish government takes the findings very seriously. "We have gained even more clarity in the fact that children and parents have been affected and harmed for decades within the framework of international adoption activities," she said. It will now analyse the commission's conclusions and proposals. Adoptionscentrum, Sweden's largest agency for international adoptions, is in favour of reviewing current practices, but questions a total ban. "If the alternative for a child is to grow up in an institution, I think that growing up in a safe family in another country could be in the best interests of the individual child," Margret Josefsson, vice-chair of the Adoption Centre, told public broadcaster SVT. The Adoption Committee was appointed in the autumn of 2021 following an investigation by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter (DN), which found examples of what journalists referred to as "stolen children" from South Korea, China, Sri Lanka and Chile, among others. It revealed that thousands of children were adopted in Sweden with falsified background information. While the children's documentation stated that they had been abandoned or that their parents could not afford to keep them, the DN investigation showed that, in several cases, biological parents were robbed of their children. This was confirmed by the commission as revealed on Monday. "Children have in some cases been adopted without the voluntary and informed consent of the parents. The best interests of the child have not always been ensured," the report said. In Chile and Colombia, mothers told of how their children had been abducted from day-care centres and hospitals. In some countries, these activities involved gangs consisting of hospital staff, lawyers, police and government officials. The investigation by DN also found that Swedish authorities knew about child trafficking and this corruption in key adoption countries, but did not take action. In its report, the commission stated that, in some cases, "Swedish actors were aware that irregularities had already occurred when they occurred, while in other cases it was discovered much later". Sweden is the latest country to examine its international adoption policies after allegations of unethical practices. The Netherlands last year announced it would no longer allow its citizens to adopt children from abroad after a scathing report on abuses was published in 2021, including reports of child theft, child trafficking and unethical actions by officials. Meanwhile, Denmark's only overseas adoption agency announced last year it was 'winding down' its facilitation of international adoptions after a government agency raised concerns over fabricated documents and procedures which obscured children's biological origins abroad. Sweden's neighbour Norway is conducting probes into past adoption practices regarding adoptees from South Korea. More than 6,500 children came from the Asian country to the Nordic country. Meanwhile, the Belgian region of Flanders has also paused international adoptions following reports of malpractice with adoptions from Ethiopia, the Gambia, Haiti and Morocco.
