The state was more active than we had known: The Foreign Service pushed for the adoption of children abroad to Denmark.
DR-Inland in Denmark
Friday, December 20, 2024 • 5:08 PM UTC - in Denmark
Danske embassies and consulates around the world helped controversial adoption agencies in the 1970s and 1980s to carry out adoptions of foreign children to Denmark.
DR reported earlier today that the Danish foreign service in the 1980s was involved in adoptions from Lebanon, which, according to experts, were completed through bribery (
However, it's not just in Lebanon where the state has been involved. The new podcast series 'Falske Minder' reveals that the Danish foreign service, according to experts, assisted adoption agencies with adoptions from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and South Korea.
> It shows that it wasn't the children who were in focus
> Klaus Josefsen, external lecturer at Aarhus University
Different parts of the Danish foreign ministry put pressure on countries that wanted to limit international adoptions.
- It shows that the state was more active than we knew in facilitating adoptions and that adoption agencies didn't operate alone. They had help and support from Danish authorities, says Lene Myong, who is a professor at the University of Stavanger and researches transnational adoption.
Several experts have read documents in these cases. One of them is Klaus Josefsen, who is a lawyer and an external lecturer in administrative law at Aarhus University.
- It shows that it wasn't the children who were in focus. It was the adoptive parents, and the enormous demand that was in Denmark to get children, he says.
-------------------------
Which adoption agencies?
-------------------------
In the 1970s and 1980s, there were three adoption agencies that facilitated adoptions to Denmark. All adoptions went through them.
It was AC Børnehjælp (formerly Adoption Center), DanAdopt (formerly Glemte Børn), and Terre des Hommes.
All three agencies have been involved in cases of adoptions based on false stories or documents. Terre des Hommes closed in 2000 following revelations about forged medical records.
AC Børnehjælp and DanAdopt closed in 2014 following revelations about the use of child recruiters in Ethiopia.
The Danish Foreign Ministry has been presented with the new information and writes in an email to DR that "we take all allegations of corruption and bribery very seriously and acknowledge their gravity - especially those that concern the adoption sector."
Below, we take a closer look at what Danish documents in the National Archives have revealed about a part of Denmark's role in adoptions from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and South Korea.
---------------------------------------------------------
Sri Lanka wanted to limit adoptions - Denmark put pressure on
---------------------------------------------------------
Correspondence shows that the Danish foreign service tried to help 12 Danish couples who wanted to adopt children from Sri Lanka.
This happened after the Sri Lankan government put a stop to foreign adoptions in 1978. The Sri Lankan government wanted to tighten adoption regulations.
> One could count on the Danish authorities' pull in the strings
> Lene Myong, professor, University of Stavanger
One of Sri Lanka's plans was to only allow approved orphanages to adopt children out.
This would mean that none of the 12 Danish couples would be able to adopt the children they had been approved to receive before the Sri Lankan government put adoptions on hold.
The Danish foreign ministry intervened and sent several letters to the Danish embassy in Sri Lanka.
Here, the ministry urged the Danish consul to "assist the aforementioned in every possible way with a view to the completion of the desired adoptions."
The Danish embassy then contacted high-ranking ministers in the Sri Lankan government - including the prime minister - and asked for the 12 children to be allowed to go to Denmark.
----------------------------
The prime minister intervened
----------------------------
The then Danish prime minister Anker Jørgensen (S) also got involved in the case from Sri Lanka and wrote a letter to one of the Danish couples in 1979:
- The Danish consul has followed the case closely and has on several occasions addressed the authorities, in several cases at the ministerial level.
He also mentions, however, that he will not do more in the matter, as he fears that further pressure will work against the goal.
The then Danish prime minister Anker Jørgensen informed one Danish couple, who were waiting to adopt from Sri Lanka, "that the foreign ministry's assurance that the consul would continue to follow the development closely." (Photo: © Allan Moe/Ritzau Scanpix)
The Danish authorities' involvement shows, according to professor Lene Myong, "which power structure has been behind adoption facilitation."
- One could count on the Danish authorities' pull in the strings, she says.
DR cannot document how it ended with the concrete 12 adoptions, where the Danish foreign service played a role.
--------------------------
Sri Lanka admitted to the sale of thousands of children with false papers
--------------------------
Sri Lankan authorities admitted in 2017 (
The Danish Child Welfare Agency investigated adoption from Sri Lanka in 2021 and concluded in a report that "there are indications that irregularities have been part of the facilitation to Denmark."
------------------------------------------------------
The embassy was supposed to get 19 children from Bangladesh to Denmark
------------------------------------------------------
In Bangladesh, the government also decided in the late 1970s to tighten regulations on international adoption. This left 19 Danish couples in a situation where adoptions they had already been approved for were being delayed. The documents DR has seen also confirm this.
A dialogue then began between the Danish Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Bangladesh to work for a solution.
- The embassy is instructed to contact the Bangladeshi authorities at an appropriate level to request exit permits for the 19 Bengali children, whom Terre des Hommes has arranged adoptions for in Denmark, it says in a telegram sent from the Danish Foreign Ministry to the embassy in April 1980.
Tytte Botfeldt ran the adoption bureau Terre des Hommes, which arranged adoptions for the 19 children from Bangladesh. (Photo: © Johnny Bonne/Ritzau Scanpix)
At the same time, several members of the Danish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee also wrote a letter to the country's government, urging them to grant the 19 children exit permits to Denmark.
It is not clear whether the intervention was successful or not. It is therefore uncertain whether the 19 adoptions were carried out and on what basis.
----------------------------------------------------
Denmark asked South Korea to lift quotas on adoption
----------------------------------------------------
In 1974, South Korea decided to close down international adoptions to Scandinavian countries. This led the Danish foreign service and embassy in South Korea to put pressure on the South Korean government to reverse the decision.
The Danish embassy in South Korea contacted the South Korean government and prime minister several times on the matter.
The documents in the National Archives and a declassified document, DR has access to, show that.
---------------
So, how did we do it?
---------------
DR Documentary has, in connection with the podcast series 'Falske minder', gone through nearly 1,000 pages of AC Børnehjælp's archives from Libanon in the 70s and 80s.
We have mapped out adoption cases and the involved parties.
We have gone through the adoption files that the National Archives have received from the Foreign Ministry from 43 countries.
We have presented relevant documentation to experts in administrative law, social and child law, human rights, and transnational adoption, as well as the involved parties.
In addition, we have interviewed several of the adopted children from Libanon, their families, as well as several parties and witnesses in Libanon.
The total ban was replaced in 1975 with a quota system, which limited the number of adoptions. This brought the Danish foreign minister up against the South Korean president's advisor during a lunch in Copenhagen in 1976.
- From the Danish side, the request was made urgently that it should be considered in South Korea to lift the quotas for Danish adoptions, it says in a report from the president's advisor's visit.
Later, quotas were completely lifted - partly due to continued Danish pressure.
> There is, in my best estimation, talk of a system that goes across countries and many years
> Marya Akhtar, legal director, Institute for Human Rights
Adoptions from South Korea are some of the most exposed cases in recent years, where it has come to light that a large number of them were illegal. Earlier this year, the Danish Child Welfare Agency published a report describing how South Korean adoption agencies systematically forged adoption papers and how Danish adoption agencies were aware of it.
You can see more about adoptions from South Korea in this Horisont-program:
24. JAN 2023 | 28M *Horisont:* The Lie about Louise's Adoption (
-------------------
What was up and down?
-------------------
The new information underscores the importance of focusing on the state's role, which has been underplayed so far, says Lene Myong.
- It could well be that it wasn't decided illegally. But it's the power relationships that become interesting. That the authorities from the Danish side may have been much more interested in getting those adoptions through than they were in supervising or intervening in cases where things went wrong, she says.
Marya Akhtar, who is the legal director at the Institute for Human Rights, believes that it calls for a retrospective investigation of the area.
- There is, in my best estimation, talk of a system that goes across countries and many years, where either there was a lack of supervision from Danish authorities or, in some cases, active involvement in adoptions. It calls for an investigation: What was up and down? And what responsibility does Denmark bear?
Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.