The Flemish Centre for Adoption gave Portugal a positive assessment for intercountry adoption in 2023. However, there are quite a few questions to be asked about the Portuguese childcare system and the reason why many are offered for adoption abroad. It seems that especially children with care needs are no longer given a place.

'Our country has a long tradition of residential care,' says Guida Mendes Bernardo, director of SOS Children's Villages in Portugal. 'That is still ingrained, especially in the interior. There is a perception that children, especially those growing up in poverty, are better placed in a facility than staying with their parents, because that would give the child more opportunities.' 

In 2023, according to the Portuguese government, 6,183 children and young people were placed in care, compared to 263 in foster care. This represents 4% of placements. However, experts agree that a foster family is better for a child than a care facility. "We are concerned about how heavily the Portuguese system relies on residential care," warns Nigel Cantwell, an international expert in child protection. He writes this in an analysis by the International Social Service (ISS), an international network of NGOs focusing on children's rights and safety. This analysis was commissioned by the Flemish Centre for Adoption (VCA) in order to decide whether adoptions from Portugal, and a number of other countries, will remain possible in the future.

In response to the UN Guidelines for Child Protection, the southern European country passed a law in December 2023 that requires all large facilities to transform to a smaller, family-oriented model. The new rules stipulate, among other things, that centres may house a maximum of 15 children per ward, and that each child must have a trajectory supervisor . That transition is now in full swing. 

Foster care in its infancy

Some New Zealanders have adopted more than 10 children from overseas and one woman with previous convictions smuggled children into the country, government briefings have revealed.

Internal intelligence reports and warnings to Labour and National immigration ministers show concerns about the motives of some parents in adopting children from abroad, but being powerless to act.

A Swedish commission recommended last week that international adoptions be stopped after an investigation found a series of abuses and fraud dating back decades.

In New Zealand, too, the abuses - and the unchecked pathway for adoptees coming from countries which have not ratified the Hague Convention - have been known about for decades. It has included adoptive parents with previous convictions and children being held as house-slaves or sexually assaulted.

Oranga Tamariki and the Family Court here do not need to be consulted - or even notified - before the children are adopted and arrive in New Zealand, which has also prompted fears the lack of oversight could mean other abuses remain undiscovered.

Thousands of Brazilian children were illegally removed from the country in the 1980s. Now, a court has ruled that the state be held responsible for three cases that occurred in Minas Gerais.

A court decision recognizing the state's responsibility for violations against families whose babies were taken abroad in the 1980s could be a milestone for similar cases, which are mounting across Brazil. This precedent paves the way for more victims to seek justice in search of redress, experts say.

The Federal Court's decision in late April concerns three cases that occurred in the interior of Minas Gerais, in the municipality of Santos Dumont. In this small town of 40,000 inhabitants, between 1985 and 1987, there were allegations of 176 forced adoptions, with many of the children being taken to Italy and France. The ruling ordered the federal government and the state of Minas Gerais to pay a total of R$1.8 million in compensation to three families whose children were sent to Europe during this period.

The trial concerned the case of seven children from three families who were forcibly taken from their homes by authorities. The mothers were arrested, placed under arrest, and prevented from responding to the removal of their children.

It's a dark chapter in Chile's history.

During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990, thousands of babies were stolen from their biological mothers and sold into adoption, mainly to foreign couples from the United States and Europe. In Chile, they're known as "The Children of Silence."

And now, for the first time in the country's history, a Chilean judge announced he was prosecuting individuals alleged to have stolen babies in the country.

Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, a Santiago Court of Appeals judge in charge of the investigation "determined that in the 1980s" there was a network of health officials, Catholic priests, attorneys, social workers and even a judge who detected and delivered stole babies from mainly impoverished mothers and sold them into adoption to foreign couples for as much as $50,000, according to a Monday press release by Chile's judiciary.

The investigation, which focuses on the city of San Fernando in central Chile, involves two babies who were stolen and handed over to foreign couples, according to the judiciary statement.

Serious crimes have been committed in international adoptions, an investigation published on June 2nd concludes. The Adoption Commission proposes that international adoptions be stopped and that adoptees receive an apology and a sum of money. But for Susanna Johansson, it is too late, she writes in a post in poetic form.

Susanna Johansson, adoptee, sociologist, poet and author of the poetry collection Heliumballoon

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Many of us want an apology and a confirmation.
Many of us want a public apology
as a reparation for all that we have endured.

The investigation speaks clearly: Swedish authorities and organizations have accepted procedures and acted in ways that have made it difficult and in some cases impossible to assess whether an adoption is in the best interests of the child, writes Agnes Arpi.

So there she finally stood on June 2, Anna Singer, professor of civil law and special investigator for the Adoption Commission, who has been investigating international adoptions to Sweden for more than three years. An investigation that has been characterized by several extended investigation periods, criticism of the expert group and leaks from the same .

Her conclusions were difficult for some to digest, especially the one that the placement of children for adoption in Sweden should be discontinued. For others, it is a long-awaited victory.

Ten countries, not ten cases

The government, the Socialist Party and the Conservatives have agreed to conduct a historical survey of adoptions to Denmark from 70 countries in the period 1964-2016.

But this outcome is unsatisfactory, according to both experts and two adoptees who DR has spoken to.

- I am very disappointed, says David Kildendal Nielsen, who was adopted from India.

- The government, the Socialist Party and the Conservatives are presenting it as a great deal that is good for the adoptees, but it is a descriptive historical review, and we have had five of them that had no consequences.

David Kildendal Nielsen, who is adopted himself, is not satisfied with the agreement that has been reached:

The government, the Socialist Party and the Conservatives have agreed that both a historical review and an analysis of the future of adoption should be carried out.

The framework for a long-awaited impartial investigation of international adoptions to Denmark has now been put in place.

It will be a historical investigation of adoptions to Denmark from 70 countries in the period 1964-2016, where, among other things, the practices of the authorities will be examined.

This is stated in a political agreement reached on Wednesday between the government and the SF and the Conservatives.

A number of initiatives in the field of adoption aim to strengthen our knowledge of the past, provide increased support for adult adoptees, and analyze the possibilities for international adoption in the future.

Since the 1960s, children have come to Denmark through international adoption mediation. A number of reports and stories in the media have cast doubt on the basis for international adoption mediation back in time. Since then, much has changed in both Denmark and in many of the countries that have given up children. In 1997, the Hague Adoption Convention came into force in Denmark, and most recently in 2016, the Danish system for international adoption was fundamentally changed with stricter supervision. In recent years, however, it has proven difficult to implement adoption mediation under the current requirements, and there is currently no permanent solution for international adoption mediation to Denmark.

Therefore, the government, the Socialist People's Party and the Conservative People's Party have agreed on a number of important initiatives in the area of ​​adoption, which together will contribute to more knowledge about the past, provide increased support for adult adoptees and also shed light on future options for adoption. The starting point for the agreement is consideration for the best interests of the child, regardless of age.

There is agreement on the following: 

1: An impartial study of adoption mediation to Denmark from all partner countries

Justice Aguilar Brevis indicted Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Moisés Espinoza León, Carlos Sigisfredo Vega Segura, Laura Rosa Silva Sánchez, and Sylvia Clara Vilches Rojas for the crimes of criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct. A request was made for the first defendant's extradition to Israel.

The visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, issued the first indictment for child abductions between the 1970s and 1990s, and the Supreme Court sent an extradition request from Israel for one of the defendants.

The judge prosecuted and ordered the pretrial detention of five people for criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct in the illegal adoption of two minors from the commune of San Fernando, who were given to foreign couples.

Minister Aguilar Brevis indicted Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Moisés Espinoza León, Carlos Sigisfredo Vega Segura, Laura Rosa Silva Sánchez, and Sylvia Clara Vilches Rojas for the crime of criminal association.

In addition, Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez was charged with two counts of child abduction. Ismael Espinoza León, Carlos Vega Segura, and Laura Silva Sánchez were also charged with child abduction.