Latest news with #childtrafficking
CTV News
2 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
2 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.
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Sweden faces call to halt international adoptions after inquiry finds abuses and fraud
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 press 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 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, also documented by 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. 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.
Malay Mail
2 days ago
- General
- Malay Mail
From China to Colombia: Swedish inquiry urges apology, ban on adoptions over stolen children
STOCKHOLM, June 2 — A Swedish probe ordered by the government recommended Monday banning international adoptions, citing serious irregularities spanning decades. Children brought to Sweden have been adopted from abroad without the free and informed consent of their parents, erroneously declared dead, or put up for adoption by someone other than their parents, the head of the probe, Anna Singer, told a press conference. '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. Cases of trafficking had been reported 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). The top five countries of origin are South Korea, India, Colombia, China and Sri Lanka. The report found 'significant and systemic gaps' in documentation in Sweden concerning the origin of children adopted abroad. False information such as 'the date of birth, information on the parents, as well as the circumstances and reasons' for the adoption had been identified in documents, Singer said. The report noted that Swedish regulations had been aimed primarily to facilitate international adoption. Most of the adoption activity was handled by private organisations, which had an interest in having as many children as possible adopted, according to the report. Due to the irregularities, the probe proposed banning all international adoptions and that Sweden publicly apologise to those affected. 'The state needs to recognise the human-rights violations that have occurred,' Singer said. International adoptions have drastically decreased in Sweden since the 1980s, according to data from Adoptionscentrum, the country's largest adoption mediation group. In 1985, more than 900 children were adopted abroad, compared to 14 since the beginning of 2025, according to the organisation. — AFP
Arab News
2 days ago
- General
- Arab News
Sweden faces call to halt international adoptions after inquiry finds abuses and fraud
STOCKHOLM: A Swedish commission recommended Monday that international adoptions be stopped after an investigation found a series of abuses and fraud dating back 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 the Scandinavian country's problematic international adoption system. Monday's recommendations were sent to Minister of Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall.'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 press 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 said a public apology, besides being important for those who are personally affected, can help raise awareness about the violations because there is a tendency to download the existence and significance of the Associated Press investigation, also documented by 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 AP and Frontline spoke with more than 80 adoptees in the US, 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'd been sent to new parents findings are challenging the international adoption industry, which was built on the model created in South 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 Korea sent around 200,000 children to the West for adoptions in the past six decades, with more than half of them placed in the US Along with France and Denmark, Sweden was a major European destination of South Korean children, adopting nearly 10,000 of them since the 1960s.
