Corruption in Adoption - The Child Deal | Daily indicator
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Corruption in adoptions
The deal about the child
The case of a convicted child mediator from Sri Lanka brings international adoptions into the twilight again.
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In commercial systems, children become commodities: orphans in Sri Lanka.
Photo: Getty Images
04/26/20 by Martin Stoll
The childless couple went through difficult hours. Valentina and Livio *, both in their mid-thirties, were so close to their heart's desire, a child. But when the Lucerne adoption agent called on that January morning three years ago, a dark shadow came up.
The intermediary asked for additional money: For four officers at the adoption agency in Colombo. 850 francs are due each, almost three times the normal monthly salary in the country. Get paid, everything goes very quickly, he said.
“There are four officers on the committee. The signature costs Sfr. 850.– per person! »
Whatsapp message from the adoption agent
According to court records, the Vaud couple wanted to know whether this was about corruption. That's just the way it is, replied the adoption broker, approved by the federal authorities, in monosyllables. There is a lot of it in Sri Lanka. He fled his former home to Switzerland 36 years ago.
Clearly that is not nice of the Sri Lankan officials, wrote the part-time child mediator in bumpy English in western Switzerland after work. At that moment he guessed that the money demand had arrived badly there. 850 francs only for an official's signature! But they are the ones who would give the approval. And then he repeated what he had written earlier that day: "That stays between us !!"
"We're very sorry, but we don't want to adopt a child like this," Valentina wrote ten minutes later from Vaud to Lucerne. Adopting doesn't mean buying: "We don't want to start a relationship with our child based on love and trust like this."
Adoption agencies operate on thin ice
On Friday, the man sat before the judge of the Lucerne criminal court: light hair, shortly before retirement, a courteous, shy man. Probably a good neighbor. Valentina and Livio had reported him to the supervisory authority of the adoption brokers, the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ). This acted unequivocally: They withdrew the license for arranging adoptions and filed a criminal complaint.
The immigrant, who himself adopted two children from his homeland and had placed 29 more homeless children from Sri Lanka in Switzerland over the years, spoke of misunderstandings in the negotiation room on the second floor of an office building on Lake Lucerne. He denied the alleged incitement to bribery.
Only: the prosecutor and the judge had no doubts about the adoption broker's guilt. The man was sentenced to a conditional fine of CHF 11,700 and a fine of CHF 2,000. He's probably going to lose the approval for adoption agencies forever.
There is no evidence that the now convicted person was an unscrupulous trafficker. On the contrary: in his home country he is committed to care for the elderly, vocational training and children's homes. But the case is an example of the thin ice on which the intermediaries of international adoptions operate. Last year 72 children were brought to Switzerland as part of such a procedure.
Still mediations from problem countries
The authorities are currently dealing with an adoption scandal from the 1980s and 1990s. 700 married couples brought babies from Sri Lanka to Switzerland. Children were adopted with forged papers or conceived on a baby farm for the childless couples from Europe. Although the Bund knew of problems, it remained inactive at the time.
Wherever rules are violated, the federal authorities intervene consistently. After it became known that in some cases the consent of the birth parents was not available for adoptions in Ethiopia, an adoption pause was imposed for the country.
The resources used for supervision are modest, however: half a government agency, and from autumn a full one, is available for this. Notoriously corrupt countries such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Russia and Moldova are still on the federal government's list of mediators.
In such corrupt systems, the types of bribery have refined over the years - probably because of international pressure: Involved lawyers multiply their fees, or homes demand generous donations from adoptive parents.
"Such practices are ugly, but often move in a legal gray area," says Joëlle Schickel, the FOJ's expert for international adoptions. The United Nations Human Rights Council demands full cost transparency for adoption. Sudden claims for money would increase the risk of abusive adoptions.
Valentina and Livio also refused the deal for a child - and paid their price for it: The longing for a young life has remained unsatisfied to this day.
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