Danish woman helped buy children for adoption in Lebanon: 'The black one...he's cheap'
New podcast series from DR Dokumentar reveals that Danish adoption agency was involved in bribery and child trafficking in the 1980s.
In March 1983, the Danish adoption agency AC Børnehjælp received a typewritten letter from one of the agency's employees in Lebanon. It was a Danish woman whose job was to help the agency find children for adoption.
The letter stated that she had been put in touch with a Lebanese midwife who could provide children.
- Apparently she can give us the children we want, but the price is 21-25,000 DKK (the currency of the time, ed.). Nobody gets anything for free in Lebanon. Take it or leave it (...) I'm standing in line with people who are willing to pay any amount for the child.
The Danish woman was called Grethe Buhr, and DR has been granted access to the correspondence between her and AC Børnehjælp. It appears that at least 18 of the 49 children that Grete Buhr brought to Denmark in the 1980s came from the midwife in question. A total of 63 have been adopted to Denmark from Lebanon over the years.
DR has presented the documents to several experts, and on that basis they criticize that a number of adoption cases from Lebanon have been based on child trafficking and bribery.
- It's pure child trafficking. And it's also the first time I've seen it so explicitly, says Klaus Josefsen, who is a lawyer, external lecturer in administrative law at Aarhus University and has followed the adoption field closely for a number of years.
Who are the experts?
Several experts believe that the way AC Børnehjælp facilitated adoptions from Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s can be characterized as child trafficking or bribery.
The experts are:
Klaus Josefsen, external associate professor at Aarhus University and expert in administrative law.
Caroline Adolphsen, professor of children's law who has researched adoption, Aarhus University.
Stine Jørgensen, professor of social law who has researched international adoption, University of Copenhagen.
'The path to adoption is formula milk'
The revelations about the adoptions from Lebanon come to light in a new podcast series from DR Dokumentar called 'Falske Minder' . It appears that Grethe Buhr arrived in Lebanon in 1981, where she was hired by AC Børnehjælp as their new liaison.
After that, she began looking for places that had children who could be placed for adoption and sent to Denmark.
In addition to hospitals and private clinics, Grete Buhr got in touch with the Christian orphanage Bon Pasteur just outside the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
It appears from the documents from AC Børnehjælp that during Grete Buhr's first visit to Bon Pasteur in 1982, she was told that the orphanage already had a long waiting list, but Grete Buhr found a solution to this. She wrote the following home to the director of the adoption agency, Folmer Lund Nielsen in Denmark:
- Latest news from Lebanon. The key to adopting children to Denmark is powdered milk and used children's clothes.
Further in the letter, Grete Buhr wrote that:
- I asked the nun if anyone was interested in second-hand children's clothes from Denmark. They would be extremely grateful for that. I then asked if there was anything else they wanted for the children. Yes, milk, was the answer... ...I promised that we would try to send them milk and children's clothes. You should have seen the nun's eyes when I said that. We are at the top of the list now, I'm sure.
The first donation that AC Børnehjælp sent to the orphanage was one ton of powdered milk, which we know today as infant formula. In the period 1983 to 1986, a number of donations to the orphanage followed, including children's clothing, food and a washing machine.
Who was AC Children's Aid?
AC Børnehjælp is a former Danish adoption agency that operated in Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s.
In total, the agency was responsible for over 13,000 adoptions until 2014.
In 2015, they merged with the other large adoption agency DanAdopt, and they became the organization Danish International Adoption - known as DIA.
At the end of 2024, DIA closed and transferred their archives to the Danish Appeals Board.
AC Børnehjælp also donated medical equipment to hospitals in Lebanon, from which the agency could arrange children for adoption. The donations, wrote Grete Buhr, were given, among other things, to create 'good will' so that more children could come to Denmark, but according to several experts, these donations were bribes.
- Whether it's a monetary benefit, or an ambulance, or something else - it's a bribe. And that's not allowed, says Klaus Josefsen.
It's not just bribery, says Stine Jørgensen, who is a professor of social law at the University of Copenhagen and has researched international adoption.
"I would call it payment. It's something they get for having children," she says, elaborating:
- You are welcome to make donations. But the moment it is linked to being able to receive children, it is payment for the children. So those systems must be completely separate.
Stine Jørgensen assesses that demand for children from Denmark may have increased the risk of child trafficking in Lebanon.
- When there is a system in Denmark where there is a high demand for children for adoptive parents in Denmark, there is of course a risk that the adoption work in the countries we collaborate with will be affected by it. That is, the donations on the one hand, and then receiving child adoption on the other hand.
'He's cheap, haha'
Payment also appears in a telephone note from 1983, where Grete Buhr told AC Børnehjælp in Denmark about an infant boy who had been delivered to the Bon Pasteur orphanage.
This is also the place in the extensive correspondence that DR has seen where skin color appears to be decisive for the price of the adoption. According to the note, Grete Buhr said on the phone that:
- (...) the black one won't cost much! He's cheap, haha. He's not worth paying for.
Caroline Adolpsen, professor of children's law at Aarhus University, has read the memo.
"You don't have to be a law professor to see that this is completely wrong. And I think everyone who reads this will see that it is truly wrong, deeply unethical and very embarrassing that we have subjected some children and their families to this," she says.
Personal fees are illegal
The letters from AC Børnehjælp also show a number of amounts that Grete Buhr paid when she found new children for adoption.
- I have paid 26,000 kr for 'Nanna', 17,000 kr for 'Søren' and 24,000 kr for 'Anders' and it is this money that I am asking to be transferred now. I do not want to overdraw our account.
The names in the quote are fictitious in order not to publish the real names of the individuals.
The amounts were used to cover personal fees for doctors and midwives who provided children for adoption, among other things. And the amounts were far too high, according to several experts, who therefore criticize AC Børnehjælp for trafficking in children.
- As it stands, it's hard to call it anything other than child trafficking, based on the documents I've seen, says Caroline Adolphsen.
BT visited Grete Buhr in Beirut and told the newspaper how she picked up children in a small bullet-riddled Honda during the civil war in the 1980s. A total of 63 adoptees have come from Lebanon to Denmark - Grete Buhr arranged for 49 of them. Original photos and text: Erik Pedersen, BT
AC Børnehjælp only had to pay doctors and midwives for hospital bills and administrative costs, emphasizes external associate professor Klaus Josefsen.
But in several letters, Grete Buhr wrote that she paid personal fees to the doctors. It appears, among other things, that an obstetrician demanded what amounted to 21,000 kroner, but that the price was negotiated down to 10,500 kroner. Grete Buhr wrote:
- The next day he called and asked how much I wanted to pay, and I replied normal fees and hospital expenses and not a single Lebanese Lira more, and he accepted that.
But several experts emphasize that healthcare professionals should not receive personal fees in adoption cases.
- In cases where it becomes very explicit, like here - with a personal supplement to a doctor for giving a child up for international adoption, then it becomes child trafficking, says Professor Stine Jørgensen.
Legal adoptions on paper
The documents from AC Børnehjælp also show that Grete Buhr initiated cooperation with the Protestant court in Beirut, which was supposed to approve the adoptions. This was a requirement for the adoptions to be legal.
The adoptions were approved on the basis of documents prepared by Grete Buhr with information about the children's origins, birthplace and religion.
But in at least two cases, the information in the adoptees' adoption papers does not match the names, ages or religions of their biological Lebanese families. This is documented in the podcast series 'False Memories' based on two cases where adoptees have found their biological families.
Anna Gabriel Top is one of the 49 adoptees that Grete Buhr helped bring from Lebanon to Denmark in the 1980s. In papers about her, it can be seen that there were negotiations with an obstetrician in Beirut about how much he should receive in fees to release her for adoption. You can hear more about her story in the podcast 'Falske Minder'. (Photo: © Sille Veilmark DR)
At the same time, DR's review of adoption papers from Lebanon shows that the adoptees' birthplace is in most cases stated as the Bon Pasteur orphanage. But in several cases it appears from Grete Buhr's letters that the children were born elsewhere, for example in hospitals. So the documents do not match.
And it is criticized by external associate professor Klaus Josefsen, who calls it falsification of identity documents.
- It is offensive that these children are deprived of their identity by changing their birthplace, name or religion, he says.
It is so important to get this documentation out, that is, to start documenting and rewriting the story of international adoptions.Stine Jørgensen, professor of social law
Professor Stine Jørgensen welcomes the fact that AC Børnehjælp's correspondence is now coming to light:
- It is so important to get this documentation out, that is, to start documenting and rewriting the story of international adoptions.
'Our mother facilitated adoptions with good intentions'
Grete Buhr died 18 years ago. The experts' criticism has therefore been submitted to her descendants. In a response to DR, Grete Buhr's children write:
- These are serious accusations against our mother in court. Accusations that she herself has no opportunity to defend or explain, as she has now been dead for 18 years.
- What we know is that our mother acted out of concern for the children who were born during a violent wartime in the hope of giving these children a better future in Denmark, without war, destruction and death. What we know is that our mother facilitated adoptions with good intentions.
This is how we did it
In connection with the podcast series Falske Minder, DR Dokumentar has reviewed almost 1,000 pages of access to documents in AC Børnehjælp's archive from Lebanon in the 70s and 80s.
We have mapped the adoption cases and the parties involved.
We have reviewed the files on adoption that the National Archives has received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 43 countries.
We have presented relevant documentation to experts in administrative law, social and children's law, human rights and transnational adoption and involved parties.
In addition, we have interviewed a number of those adopted from Lebanon, their families, as well as a number of parties and witnesses in Lebanon.
DR has also presented the criticism to Allan Sørensen via his and Grete Buhr's children, and they announce that he has no comments.
AC Børnehjælp and their successor DIA have now been closed down and their activities have been transferred to the Danish National Appeals Board. In a response, the board does not address the specific criticism, but writes that they do not expect to conduct new studies of the adoption area, as it has been decided from a political perspective that a historical study of the international adoption area should be conducted.
The criticism has also been presented to the descendants of the former director of AC Children's Aid, Folmer Lund Nielsen, but they have not responded to our inquiry.
DR has also attempted to provide information to the Bon Pasteur orphanage in Lebanon, but they have not returned either.
Behind the iron gate of a cemetery lies a secret that will change the history of many people. You can hear more about the cemetery, Grethe Buhr, AC Børnehjælp and get the personal stories of the adoptees in the DR podcast series 'Falske minder'.