Sweden Opens Intn'l Adoptions Probe After Kidnapping Reports

Sweden will launch an official inquiry into the country's international adoptions over the past 70 years, vowing to tackle "irregularities" following reports some children were kidnapped

Stockholm, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Oct, 2021 ) :Sweden will launch an official inquiry into the country's international adoptions over the past 70 years, vowing to tackle "irregularities" following reports some children were kidnapped.

The probe will look at adoptions from Chile and China in particular, after reports surfaced about unusual adoption processes, Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren said.

"The investigator will examine whether irregularities occurred regarding the countries from which most adoptions took place, as well as the countries where there are strong suspicions that there have been irregularities," Hallengren told reporters.

The probe will examine Sweden's regulations for international adoptions from 1950 to present.

It comes amid fears that some children were stolen and put up for international adoption without their biological parents' knowledge.

Swedish media have over the years reported about children whose adoption documents were falsified, mothers who had their babies erroneously declared dead at birth, as well as forced adoptions, kidnappings and stolen children.

Some 60,000 children have been adopted to Sweden since the mid-1900s, primarily from South Korea, India, Colombia and Sri Lanka.

More than 4,000 children have been adopted from China, often babies that Chinese authorities said had been abandoned by their parents, according to an investigative report by Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.