In Chile, judge Mario Carroza investigates about 500 cases of what he suspects are illegal adoptions where Chilean children have been sent abroad. He is investigating a Chilean social worker suspected of trafficking in human beings. Following a request for social media, some 40 adopted from Chile in Sweden have listened to, since they have the name and/or address of this Chilean social worker in their papers. Does this mean that we in Sweden were also part of these illegal acts, what in Chile is considered to be human trafficking?

In early February, SVT released the news about a number of suspected illegal adopters from Chile to Sweden. This news, in combination with the Chilean judge’s investigation, basically means that neither of us 2,021 children adopted from Chile to Sweden via the Adoption Center can know for sure if our adoption has been right. This, regardless of what it says in the adoption documents when these documents have been systematically issued without the consent of the biological parents.

Adoption Center worked with a network of social workers, judges, police, and military. One of these social workers is the woman mentioned above, being investigated and suspected of trafficking in human beings.

The Adoption Center tells about another social worker who has been responsible for adoptions of more than 1,000 children! How did he help to find so many children that were available for adoption? Social workers in Chile engaged an outreach activity, sometimes the mother was forced to leave his child. Second, the mother was informed that the child died at birth, or the child was taken from her.

In different ways, biological parents in Chile have been manipulated and cheated on their children, children who have since been sent abroad. There are parents who for decades have sought the children taken away from them in different ways. The biological parents have not known where the child has gone if the child lives or is dead. There have also been judges who were known to look between the fingers and let adoptions that should not have been completed go through.

There was one and the same doctor who examined all 2,021 children sent to Sweden, a military. In the group chileadoption.se, we have seen that the more people who get into their biological families, the more irregularities occur. From Chile, there are also a group of children who came 5-8 years old, who very much remember what happened and how they were taken from their families.

It has broken somewhere in the adoption process. The Adoption Center had its guidelines and the employees in place in Chile would also work according to these guidelines. From Sweden, the NIA Authority would review and keep an eye on the adoption organization. Yet, we are sitting here, many adult Chile-adopted whose adoptions have not been right.

When we examine the data we got, we have been able to see that this is something much bigger than “only” we children who came to Sweden from Chile. How many children have actually been sent from Chile in a similar way?

It is also said about Chilean children’s children in connection with trade in organs, and that medicines should have been tested on these children, the most vulnerable in society.

This is what we call more than deficiencies in the review, this is human trafficking. How have you been able to receive children sent from Chile for over two decades without properly reviewing the circumstances? How can you at the Adoption Center today claim to have been in control of how the adoptions went into the 1970s, 80s, and 90s when one of their partners was now being investigated for trafficking in human beings?

Now, hundreds of Chile adopted have joined a group and we call us for chileadoption.se. We want to review all 2,021 adoptions sent from Chile to Sweden through the Adoption Center in the 1970s and 1980s, with the knowledge available today. We also want the Adoption Center to be held responsible for what it posed to the biological families, our children and our adoptive parents. And we ask ourselves: What is the responsibility of the Swedish state in this?

By: Maria Diemar and Tommy Leite

Original article: FriaTidningen 

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