COPENHAGEN: Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency, Danish International Adoption (DIA), announced on Tuesday that it is “winding down” its facilitation of international adoptions. This decision comes after a government agency expressed concerns over fabricated documents and procedures that obscured children’s biological origins abroad.
DIA, a privately run agency, has been mediating adoptions in several countries including the Philippines, India, South Africa, Thailand, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic. However, last month, an appeals board suspended DIA’s work in South Africa due to questions surrounding the agency’s adherence to legal standards.
The decision to discontinue international adoptions by DIA coincided with a recommendation from Norway’s top regulatory body to halt all overseas adoptions for two years. This recommendation came in response to an investigation into several allegedly illegal adoption cases.
Fraud in international adoptions has been a concern raised by families in Europe, the United States, and Australia for years. Some adoptees have discovered that their paperwork was falsified to expedite their transfer to a foreign country or prepared in a way that concealed their backgrounds, making it difficult to trace their origins. In some cases, babies were falsely registered as abandoned orphans, even though they had living relatives in their native countries.
International laws, including those in Denmark, typically encourage keeping children in their countries of origin whenever possible. The Danish Social Affairs Ministry referred to the winding down of DIA as “the most serious crisis in the area of adoption in the past decade.” Social Affairs Minister Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil emphasized the need for proper adoption procedures that consider the rights and well-being of the biological parents.
Over the last decade, international adoption in Denmark has significantly decreased. In the 1970s, there were approximately 400 to 500 children adopted per year, whereas in the last three years, the number has dwindled to 20-40 adoptions, according to DIA.
In Norway, Minister for Children and Families, Kjersti Toppe, expressed the need for further investigation and has requested the Norwegian directorate for children, youth, and family affairs to conduct one. The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth, and Family Affairs stated that adoptions must be safe, sound, and in the best interest of the child. They acknowledged the real risk of illegalities in the adoption process.
The directorate clarified that families in the early stages of the adoption process will be allowed to complete their adoptions, but only after a thorough assessment by the agency. Couples who have already been matched with a child from South Korea will also be permitted to proceed.
Statistics show that a majority of the children adopted in Norway come from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Colombia. However, recent media reports of allegedly illegal adoptions have prompted an examination of the adoption system in Norway. The directorate mentioned that some children in the Philippines were sold and provided with false birth certificates.
In November, the directorate also suspended adoptions from Madagascar due to concerns about the lack of security in ensuring that adoptions adhere to international principles.
Norway currently has three private adoption agencies: Verdens Barn, which handles adoptions from Thailand, South Korea, and South Africa; InorAdopt, which arranges adoptions from Hungary, Taiwan, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic; and Adoptionsforum, which facilitates adoptions from the Philippines, Colombia, and Peru.
Sweden’s only adoption agency also announced in November that it was halting adoptions from South Korea. The concerns surrounding international adoptions are not limited to Denmark and Norway but extend to other countries as well.
The decision by DIA and the recommendation by Norway’s regulatory body reflect the need for a thorough examination of international adoption practices to ensure the safety, legality, and ethicality of the process.
Source: The Manila Times
