One of the world's foremost experts on international adoption, Nigel Cantwell, believes that several changes are needed before an adoption abroad can be said to be in the best interests of the child.

Nigel Cantwell has worked with children's rights since 1974. Throughout the 80s, he contributed to the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and later the Hague Convention .

It is this that forms the basis for today's Norwegian adoption system.

Cantwell believes that the problems associated with international adoption have been swept under the rug, and that there is still a long way to go before foreign adoptions can be defended.

- Adoption must be about the individual child's needs. Not that a country has decided that they will export 50 children a year, says Cantwell to TV 2.

- Known the challenges for a long time
 

TV 2 has previously told about Elisabeth Fjalsett, who is trying to find out what happened when she was adopted from Bangladesh to Norway in the 70s .

It was voluntary private individuals who organized the adoption, and she came alone on a plane to Norway.

A Norwegian public investigation from 1976 also points out major weaknesses in Norwegian adoption practice at this time.

Cantwell is not surprised.

- The fact that potential problems were already seen in the 70s is another proof that they have known about the challenges for a long time.

According to Cantwell, what he calls the adoption lobby created a romanticized image of adoptions.
 

- At that time, the adoption lobby was so strong that they convinced everyone, including politicians. When cases arose where things were not as they should be, it was explained away as one-off cases, says Cantwell.

System failure in Norway

In the TV 2 series "Norway behind the facade", several adoptees tell how their adoptions turn out to be illegal.

Documents have been falsified, pressure has been exerted on the mothers to give up their children, and children have been kidnapped and sent to Norway.

It also appears that the Norwegian authorities' supervision and control of adoption processes has been deficient.

Who is the adoption lobby?
 

- Those who were going to or had already adopted, and the adoption agencies of course. I don't know how strong they are in Norway, but Scandinavian countries have had a high number of adoptees, says Cantwell.