STOCKHOLM: A probe ordered by the Swedish government recommended banning international adoptions Monday, citing serious irregularities spanning decades.
Children have been brought to Sweden after being put up for adoption by people who weren’t their parents or after being wrongly declared dead, Anna Singer, who led the inquiry, told reporters.
“In some cases, they have also been given up by parents who did not understand the implications of consenting to international adoption,” Singer said, as she handed her report to Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson Gronvall.
There had also been “confirmed cases of child trafficking in every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, primarily in the context of private adoptions”, Singer said.
About 10 cases of trafficking had been reported over the years, including from Sri Lanka and Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s, Poland in the 1990s and China in the 1990s and 2000s, she said. The probe also showed the government had been aware of these irregularities “very early on”.
About 60,000 people in Sweden have been adopted from abroad, according to the Family Law and Parental Support Authority (MFoF).
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