'Long road ahead before ending Europe and Central Asia’s long, painful legacy’ of institutionalisation of children, as new UNICEF report highlights rate of children living in residential care across region is double the global average

GENEVA, 18 January 2024 – Nearly half a million children – or 456,000 – across Europe and Central Asia live in residential care facilities, including large-scale institutions, according to a new report published today by UNICEF.

Pathways to Better Protection: taking stock of the situation of children in alternative care in Europe and Central Asia notes that the rate of children living in residential care facilities across Europe and Central Asia is double the global average, with 232 per 100,000 children living in residential care facilities compared to 105 per 100,000 globally.

“We have a long way to go before ending Europe and Central Asia’s long and painful legacy of institutionalising children. While there have been some improvements, progress has been far from equal. Children with disabilities have largely been left behind,” said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.

Western Europe has the highest rate of children in residential care facilities at 294 per 100,000 children – nearly triple the global average. While facilities in Western Europe tend to be small and integrated into communities, there remains an overreliance on residential care instead of family-based care. The higher rate is partly due to an increase in unaccompanied and separated children and young people seeking asylum in Europe in recent years.

As an adoptee, I live with holes in my heart that can never be healed. The risk that I have been trafficked is horrific. I am happy that Denmark is closing international adoption.

On Facebook I read the following message:

"Today may be my birthday. This day brings me sadness and reminds me of my lack of foundation, but today I want to celebrate myself despite my sadness, because this year I fill up'.

A horrific post on a dating site has triggered a number of replies that suggest giving up children just to be with a lover is a lot more common than most people would imagine

A man's stark request to his match on a dating site has shocked singletons - but it turns out he isn't the only person to have made such a request. Posting on a dating site, a guy called Arron told his match Lauren that she was "looking good in her pics" before asking a quite shocking question.

He said: "Would you be willing to put your children up for adoption? I want to date someone without kids, so looking for someone who is willing to free themselves of their current kids xx." While it is unclear whether he was joking or not, it seems a number of people have actually done this, according to the comments below the post on Reddit. One poster said they knew of someone who had given up her own child to ensure there was peace in the home she was now sharing with her new partner.

A user of the site said: "‌My mother-in-law was friends with a lady who actually did this back in the 90s. Her son and his son would fight (they were little kids.) so she gave him up. My mother-in-law stopped being her friend when she did that. He is not OK. My husband said he was put into our local kids home/orphanage then died of a drug overdose while in high school. People who give up their kids for partners are f*****."

Non-profit Both Ends Believing uses low code technology to develop digital records and methods to help vulnerable children and families connect.

Each new iteration of technology development creates renewed hope to be a vehicle for good and empower those in need. But it’s not the technology type that enables such work but its application. Dallas-based charity Both Ends Believing (BEB) is just such an example. Through the right intentions and business technology leadership, BEB has placed 7,565 orphans with families since it began in 2010.

BEB’s aim is to transform care for vulnerable children in regions with high orphan populations such as Africa and Latin America. The charity was founded by Craig Juntunen, a former quarterback in the Canadian Football League who turned tech entrepreneur after personally experiencing the challenges of adoption. BEB isn’t a traditional charity; it’s also a digital organization using technology to deal with the complexities and inefficiencies of adoption.

Today, the charity works in nations such as Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, as well as the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Paraguay. “We’re in 13 countries with 13 production environments,” says president Mark Schwartz. “Part of the problem is children in institutional care around the world have no records, or, if they do, they’re paper-based and located where the child is.” Research for a book and movie by Juntunen found that the average adoption time for children in these regions is 33 months, leading to costs of around $28,000. “We learned we had to digitize the records,” he adds. “Our partners in federal governments need to understand the educational and medical history before they can begin trying to get them to a family.”

A policy body recommended this week that the country halt all foreign adoptions amid allegations of stolen children, falsified paperwork and for-profit adoption schemes.

One Norwegian woman only discovered via an old letter, hidden for 50 years, that she had been taken from her Korean parents. Another was taken from her home while she was stricken with polio; a woman had arrived and said she was taking the girl to medical care but instead took her to an orphanage. Yet another woman was given up to an orphanage by a vindictive grandmother, trying to break up her son’s marriage.

In each case, the women believed for their entire lives that they had been unwanted, given up or orphaned by their biological parents. The truth, though, could not have been more different.

Theirs are but a sliver of stories that have rattled Norway’s — and, potentially, greater Europe’s — robust foreign adoptions industry. On Tuesday, one of Norway’s top policy bodies recommended a halt to all foreign adoptions amid a probe into allegations of stolen children, forged paperwork and illegal, adoption-for-profit schemes. On the same day, Denmark’s sole foreign adoption agency announced it would be winding down its own operations following similar concerns.

The recommendation in Norway, sweeping in its scope, took all sides of the adoption debate by surprise.

Many Nigerian couples desiring to adopt babies, whether out of social responsibility or childlessness are finding it increasingly difficult to realize their objective as a result of the obstacles they are facing. Before now, it required just a formal documentation and payment of a moderate administrative fee to the caregivers, whether orphanage or social welfare of government to get a baby.

However, given the rising awareness of Nigerians about adoption and the nefarious activities of child traffickers and ritualists, demand has skyrocketed, and both the price of babies and the process have become frustrating, which is driving the business underground. Recently, there were reports of many northern children being sold to couples in the south for adoption illegally.

Child adoption is said to take lengthy of time for it to be fully completed, most experts put it at between 2 to 5 years processing period. In Lagos, to commence adoption process, the couple concerned will have to go to the Ministry of Youth and Social Welfare to collect adoption form, thereafter, there’s a slew of bureaucracy that discourages intending couple and this tends to slow the desire for formal adoption, even after paying a reasonable fees charged by the ministry.

On account of this, many couples, according to findings, tend to patronize many orphanage homes, especially the unregistered ones where the process is faster.

The registered homes often follow the Ministry’s guidelines.

37 Danish families were on a waiting list when the mediator of international adoptions, DIA, put an end to all adoptions from abroad.

The couple Sanne and Morten Kjær Tornøe from Randers have been approved for adoption since January last year. They got on the waiting list to receive a child from Taiwan in August.

It was not many days ago that they were last in contact with the organization Danish International Adoption (DIA), which is the only organization in Denmark that mediates international adoptions.

At that time, the couple was assured that there was no danger that the DIA would stop their adoptions to Denmark.

Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency says it is “winding down” its facilitation of international adoptions after a government agency raised concerns over fabricated documents and procedures that obscured children’s origins abroad

Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency said Tuesday that it is “winding down” its facilitation of international adoptions after a government agency raised concerns over fabricated documents and procedures that obscured children's biological origins abroad.

The privately run Danish International Adoption mediated adoptions in the Philippines, India, South Africa, Thailand, Taiwan and the Czech Republic. Last month, an appeals board suspended DIA's work in South Africa because of questions about the agency's adherence to legal standards.

The Danish agency announced it was getting out of the international adoption business on the same day Norway’s top regulatory body recommended stopping all overseas adoptions for two years pending an investigation into several allegedly illegal cases.

Chairperson of the Child Welfare Gauteng, Angelique McAdam, is calling for the investigation of all adoption agencies and related laws to be reviewed.

McAdam says child traffickers get away with their crimes due to lax laws.

“Where money is involved there’s always an opportunity for criminal activity,” she adds.

McAdam, who has adoptive children, says there needs to be stricter processes put in place.

She says it took her years to adopt her children due to gaps in the process, lack of communication between departments and adoption agencies that charge exorbitant fees with lack of service.

The trust no longer lasted

Adoption og Samfund, like the rest of Denmark, has today become aware that DIA's board of directors has decided yesterday to wind down their activities as mediators of international adoptions.

This means that there are currently is no one to mediate any international adoptions, either ongoing or upcoming. Adoption & Society has been informed that work is being done on a plan around this, just as the minister in the area, Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil, has also stated in the press.

A strained relationship between the Danish authorities and DIA, the only intermediary organization for international adoption in Denmark, has now resulted in the temporary closure of international adoption to Denmark. The trust that international adoption through DIA can take place legally, ethically and morally correctly is gone, and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and the Elderly has therefore temporarily suspended all country agreements. DIA has therefore now taken the consequence and is shutting down their work as mediators of international adoption.

The trust between the Danish authorities and DIA is gone and therefore we believe in Adoption & Society that it is the right decision. For everyone's sake, not least the adopted, adoptive families, biological and foster families, etc.