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, said.
“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).
The top five countries of origin are South Korea, India, Colombia, China and Sri Lanka.
‘Identities erased’
The report found “significant and systemic gaps” in documentation in Sweden concerning the origin of children adopted abroad.
False information such as “the date of birth, information on the parents, as well as the circumstances and reasons” for the adoption had been identified in documents, Singer said.
“When our identities have been erased, we cannot know ‘Who my parents were,’ ‘Where do I come from,’ ‘What was my culture’ … or ‘Is there anybody missing me?'” Hanna Wallensteen, a 54-year-old psychotherapist who was herself adopted from Ethiopia in 1971, said.
Wallensteen welcomed the “neutral” investigation, adding that the focus should now be on supporting individuals who had been wronged.
“I think that most of us have been brought up being told that no one wanted you, no one was able to take care of you,” she said, lamenting the “extremely negative picture” many had painted of their home countries.
She said that this was often “combined with the idea that you should be grateful that we have brought you here, [and] given a better life.”
“Living a good life is not in opposition to having been a victim of denial of human rights,” she said.
The government report also noted that Swedish regulations had been aimed primarily to facilitate international adoption.
Most of the adoption activity was handled by private organizations, which had an interest in having as many children as possible adopted, according to the report.
Due to the irregularities, the probe proposed banning all international adoptions and that Sweden publicly apologize to those affected.
“The state needs to recognize the human-rights violations that have occurred,” Singer said.
International adoptions have drastically decreased in Sweden since the 1980s, according to data from Adoptionscentrum, the country’s largest adoption mediation group.
In 1985, more than 900 children were adopted from abroad, compared to 14 since the beginning of 2025, according to the organization.
