Crisis in the field of international adoption

The Minister of Social Affairs and Housing has agreed to suspend the adoption mediating organization DIA's work in mediating international adoptions with all countries.

In May, the Minister of Social Affairs and Housing revoked the adoption mediating organization Danish International Adoption's (DIA) permission to cooperate with Madagascar. In December 2023, the Danish Appeals Board suspended DIA's cooperation with South Africa. On 12 January 2024, the Danish Appeals Board notified DIA that it will recommend to the Minister of Social Affairs and Housing that the cooperation with South Africa be definitively stopped. On the basis of a briefing from the Danish Appeals Board, the ministry has recommended to the Minister of Social Affairs and Housing that mediation work with all countries be suspended, which the Minister has  accepted. The decision has been notified to DIA.

Against this background, DIA's board has initiated a controlled winding down of its work as a mediator of international adoptions.  

It is the most serious crisis in the area of ​​adoption in the past 10 years. It happens on the same day that Norway has decided to close international adoption. Although the background is different, the development bears witness to an area which over a number of years has proved difficult to handle with a view to the security of the background for the adoptions.

Minister of Social Affairs and Housing Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil says:

I understand very much the difficult situation that the families who are waiting to adopt are now in. It is an unhappy situation. Mediation for international adoption is about people and human destinies. When we help a child to a new family on the other side of the globe, there must be the necessary assurance that the adoption has been carried out properly in relation to the biological parents.

- Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil

Facts

• In addition to decisions regarding DIA's mediation, the Danish Appeals Board decided on 12 January 2024 to extend the intensified supervision, which was initiated in December 2023 in relation to DIA's mediation work in South Africa, to include DIA's overall adoption mediation.
• The Board of Appeal therefore also decided that there was a need to review the cooperation with the Philippines, India, Thailand, Taiwan and the Czech Republic. The board's decision is due to the fact that DIA is repeatedly assessed against its better knowledge to have disregarded important rules in relation to the dissemination from Madagascar and South Africa, and there is therefore a need to discover whether DIA's failure to comply with the accreditation conditions also extends to the other cooperating countries.
• The Danish Appeals Agency, in cooperation with the authorities in the partner countries and the DIA, will decide on the processing of cases where the applicants have been matched with a child at the time of the suspension, and where the child's process risks being prolonged to an extent that is not in the child's best interests, if the adoption can no longer be carried out.
• Affected families can contact the Danish Appeals Board on telephone number 61 89 74 12 or the Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and the Elderly on telephone number 61 33 76 47.
• All families will be contacted by the authorities as soon as possible.

On the basis of imprecise wording in the introduction to this press release, the wording has been changed on 15 March 2023, so that it is clarified that it was on the basis of a briefing from the Danish Appeals Board that the Minister of Social Affairs and Housing accepted the ministry's proposal to suspend mediation work with all countries . Reference is also made to fact sheets.

Press contact

Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and the Elderly, contact the press hotline on tel.: 4185 1360 or email:  presse@sm.dk .