The investigation speaks clearly: Swedish authorities and organizations have accepted procedures and acted in ways that have made it difficult and in some cases impossible to assess whether an adoption is in the best interests of the child, writes Agnes Arpi.

So there she finally stood on June 2, Anna Singer, professor of civil law and special investigator for the Adoption Commission, who has been investigating international adoptions to Sweden for more than three years. An investigation that has been characterized by several extended investigation periods, criticism of the expert group and leaks from the same .

Her conclusions were difficult for some to digest, especially the one that the placement of children for adoption in Sweden should be discontinued. For others, it is a long-awaited victory.

Ten countries, not ten cases

The government, the Socialist Party and the Conservatives have agreed to conduct a historical survey of adoptions to Denmark from 70 countries in the period 1964-2016.

But this outcome is unsatisfactory, according to both experts and two adoptees who DR has spoken to.

- I am very disappointed, says David Kildendal Nielsen, who was adopted from India.

- The government, the Socialist Party and the Conservatives are presenting it as a great deal that is good for the adoptees, but it is a descriptive historical review, and we have had five of them that had no consequences.

David Kildendal Nielsen, who is adopted himself, is not satisfied with the agreement that has been reached:

The government, the Socialist Party and the Conservatives have agreed that both a historical review and an analysis of the future of adoption should be carried out.

The framework for a long-awaited impartial investigation of international adoptions to Denmark has now been put in place.

It will be a historical investigation of adoptions to Denmark from 70 countries in the period 1964-2016, where, among other things, the practices of the authorities will be examined.

This is stated in a political agreement reached on Wednesday between the government and the SF and the Conservatives.

A number of initiatives in the field of adoption aim to strengthen our knowledge of the past, provide increased support for adult adoptees, and analyze the possibilities for international adoption in the future.

Since the 1960s, children have come to Denmark through international adoption mediation. A number of reports and stories in the media have cast doubt on the basis for international adoption mediation back in time. Since then, much has changed in both Denmark and in many of the countries that have given up children. In 1997, the Hague Adoption Convention came into force in Denmark, and most recently in 2016, the Danish system for international adoption was fundamentally changed with stricter supervision. In recent years, however, it has proven difficult to implement adoption mediation under the current requirements, and there is currently no permanent solution for international adoption mediation to Denmark.

Therefore, the government, the Socialist People's Party and the Conservative People's Party have agreed on a number of important initiatives in the area of ​​adoption, which together will contribute to more knowledge about the past, provide increased support for adult adoptees and also shed light on future options for adoption. The starting point for the agreement is consideration for the best interests of the child, regardless of age.

There is agreement on the following: 

1: An impartial study of adoption mediation to Denmark from all partner countries

Santa Casa de Valinhos, a hospital in the Campinas region of Brazil, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of São Paulo, registered 77 births in the months of October and November 2023. Two of these births caught the attention of one of the hospital’s pediatricians, José Maria dos Santos Lopes Junior. The mothers were not from the Campinas region. They both left the hospital hours after giving birth and their babies, curiously, were registered as children of the same father: Márcio Mendes Rocha, a Portuguese businessman.

The first baby, Magda, was born on October 28 and was discharged a few hours later. The second, Evandro, came into the world 24 days later, but remained hospitalized owing to a heart problem. (To protect their identities, both children are referred to by pseudonyms.) During one of the father’s visits, the pediatrician decided to strike up a conversation. Rocha told him casually that “it’s very easy to get a surrogate mother” in Brazil. Lopes Junior decided to alert the hospital management, and on November 29, a hospital employee reported the case to the public prosecutor’s office in Valinhos.

The child and youth prosecutor who took on the case, Aline Moraes, started to investigate. She learned that the mothers of Magda and Evandro had both granted custody of their children to Rocha, and that Rocha always came to the hospital accompanied by a woman, Márcia de Godoy Honorio, who introduced herself as his secretary.  The mothers had both given the hospital residential addresses linked to Honorio.

The prosecutor, suspecting that Rocha and Honorio could be buying babies to resell them, shared information about the case with the federal police, which continued the investigation. The immigration databases of Brazil’s airports showed that during the approximate period of the two children’s conception — between December 2022 and February 2023 — Rocha was not in Brazil, and neither of their mothers was abroad. If the data was correct, this would reinforce the evidence that the Portuguese businessman was not the biological father of either child.

These laws encourage pregnant women who can’t or don’t want to raise a child to arrange for foreigners to adopt their baby and then take the child out of the country.

Justice Aguilar Brevis indicted Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Moisés Espinoza León, Carlos Sigisfredo Vega Segura, Laura Rosa Silva Sánchez, and Sylvia Clara Vilches Rojas for the crimes of criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct. A request was made for the first defendant's extradition to Israel.

The visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, issued the first indictment for child abductions between the 1970s and 1990s, and the Supreme Court sent an extradition request from Israel for one of the defendants.

The judge prosecuted and ordered the pretrial detention of five people for criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct in the illegal adoption of two minors from the commune of San Fernando, who were given to foreign couples.

Minister Aguilar Brevis indicted Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Moisés Espinoza León, Carlos Sigisfredo Vega Segura, Laura Rosa Silva Sánchez, and Sylvia Clara Vilches Rojas for the crime of criminal association.

In addition, Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez was charged with two counts of child abduction. Ismael Espinoza León, Carlos Vega Segura, and Laura Silva Sánchez were also charged with child abduction.

Panaji: A couple from Goa who recently adopted a child told TOI that although the wait was three and a half years long, the patience was worth it.
 

Five children in Goa are waiting to be adopted.
 

As for the couple who waited for three-plus years, a child was made available to them for adoption after they registered online on the CARINGS portal of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). “We did a lot of research and spoke to friends who had adopted earlier, so we were aware of the long waiting period,” the couple said. “Although we were mentally prepared, we got impatient after three years. Every day was very trying.”
 

The couple added that they had no issues as far as the process is concerned, as it’s a neat procedure. “The waiting period is the only concern, and we hope that it decreases in the future,” they said. However, the couple said they received a lot of negative reactions when they decided to adopt, spurred by the stigma that some attach to adoption.

“Many couples choose to remain childless, fearing what society will say. They have reservations about the background of the child and the genes, which is very strange,” the couple said.

Parents who register on the CARINGS portal can choose up to three states from which to adopt a child. It is a rarity for parents from Goa to get a child from the state — given its size, it has fewer children on the adoption list.
 

The technical report above provides an overview of how the research for the The Lived Experince of Intercountry Adopted Adults in Ireland Report was conducted.

Recognizing that Children with Disabilities are Children First 
 

A Study on the Situation of Care and Protection of Children with Disabilities in India

Rapid Assessment of Care Reform in India with focus on Jharkhand