STOCKHOLM: A Swedish commission recommended Monday that international adoptions be stopped after an investigation found a series of abuses and fraud dating back decades.
Sweden is the latest country to examine its international adoption policies after allegations of unethical practices, particularly in South Korea,
The commission was formed in 2021 following a report by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter detailing the Scandinavian country’s problematic international adoption system. Monday’s recommendations were sent to Minister of Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall.
“The assignment was to investigate whether there had been irregularities that the Swedish actors knew about, could have done and actually did,” Anna Singer, a legal expert and the head of the commission, told a press conference. “And actors include everyone who has had anything to do with international adoption activities.
“It includes the government, the supervisory authority, organization, municipalities and courts. The conclusion is that there have been irregularities in the international adoptions to Sweden.”
The commission called on the government to formally apologize to adoptees and their families. Investigators found confirmed cases of child trafficking in every decade from the 1970s to the 2000s, including from Sri Lanka, Colombia, Poland and China.
Singer said a public apology, besides being important for those who are personally affected, can help raise awareness about the violations because there is a tendency to download the existence and significance of the abuses.
An Associated Press investigation, also documented by Frontline (PBS), last year reported dubious child-gathering practices and fraudulent paperwork involving South Korea’s foreign adoption program, which peaked in the 1970s and `80s amid huge Western demands for babies.
The AP and Frontline spoke with more than 80 adoptees in the US, Australia and Europe and examined thousands of pages of documents to reveal evidence of kidnapped or missing children ending up abroad, fabricated child origins, babies switched with one another and parents told their newborns were gravely sick or dead, only to discover decades later they’d been sent to new parents overseas.
The findings are challenging the international adoption industry, which was built on the model created in South Korea.
The Netherlands last year announced it would no longer allow its citizens to adopt from abroad. Denmark’s only international adoption agency said it was shutting down and Switzerland apologized for failing to prevent illegal adoptions. France released a scathing assessment of its own culpability.
South Korea sent around 200,000 children to the West for adoptions in the past six decades, with more than half of them placed in the US Along with France and Denmark, Sweden was a major European destination of South Korean children, adopting nearly 10,000 of them since the 1960s.
Sweden faces call to halt international adoptions after inquiry finds abuses and fraud
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Sweden faces call to halt international adoptions after inquiry finds abuses and fraud
- The commission called on the government to formally apologize to adoptees and their families
Germany’s Merz visits India to push defense industry ties ahead of EU trade deal
- India, Germany make joint declarations on cooperation in defense, critical minerals, energy
- Merz is accompanied by CEOs of top German companies such as Thyssen, Siemens, Bosch
NEW DELHI: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to push for defense industry cooperation ahead of India’s awaited free trade agreement with the EU.
Merz’s two-day trip is his first since taking office in May and he is accompanied by German business leaders.
The visit started in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, where they held a press conference after a delegation-level meeting and a series of joint declarations, including on strengthening bilateral cooperation in the defense industry, critical minerals, semiconductors, and energy.
“The growing cooperation in defense and security is a symbol of our mutual trust and shared vision,” Modi said, as he thanked Merz for “simplifying the processes” related to defense trade.
“We will also work on a roadmap to enhance cooperation between our defense industries, which will open up new opportunities for co-development and co-production.”
The roadmap would promote long-term industry-level collaboration, including technology partnerships, co-development and co-production of defense platforms and equipment, according to Prof. Ummu Salma Bava, chairperson of the Special Centre for National Security Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“This defense cooperation marks a transformational shift in the bilateral relations that had till now focused on economic cooperation, and inaugurates a new chapter on a scaled-up defense engagement,” she told Arab News.
“PM Modi indicated that both countries are entering the ‘limitless’ phase in expanding economic cooperation in strategic sectors.”
Germany is India’s most important trading partner in Europe and one of its top partners worldwide, with bilateral trade in goods and services estimated by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs at $50 billion.
In Merz’s delegation are 25 CEOs and industry leaders, including from Thyssen Krupp Maritime Systems, Siemens, DHL Group, Infineon Technologies, Uniper, Airbus Defence and Space.
German media reported that one of the key focuses of the visit is finalizing the details of an $8 billion deal to jointly build submarines in India.
The visit comes as India and the EU — of which Germany is the largest economy — are working on a free trade agreement. It also takes place ahead of an EU-India summit in New Delhi on Jan. 27, where parts of the pact are expected to be finalized.
“The visit of the large business delegation with 25 German CEOs is to tap into the growing economic potential and also further strengthen the bilateral economic relations,” Bava said.
“The signing of the India-EU FTA will further expand trade between India and Germany. Germany is the largest economy in the EU and has a strong base in automobiles, engineering, advanced manufacturing, chemicals and defense industry.”
