by Tobias Hübinette, born in South Korea, adopted to Sweden, academic
Abstract
In October 2021 the Swedish government committee of inquiry the Adoption Commission was appointed which handed over its final report to the current government in June 2025 after over three and a half years of work. The Adoption Commission investigated irregular and unethical adoptions to Sweden from the 1950s until today and it is a part of an ongoing global process of coming to terms with the past concerning transnational adoption. This article consists of a qualitative media text study examining how the final report of the Adoption Commission has been received by the Swedish adoption world’s three stakeholder groups in the form of the adoptive parents, the adoption organisations and the adoptees in relation to transitional justice theories. The study covers the time period from the release of the report on June 2 2025 to October 6 of the same year when the referral round ended and focuses on four recommendations and themes – an official apology, a resource centre, a new adoption system, and the issue of reparation and accountability.
Contextualising Sweden’s Adoption Commission
On the 2nd of June 2025, the Swedish Adoption Commission’s chairperson law professor Anna Singer from Uppsala University handed over the commission’s final report to the responsible Minister for Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall at a press conference in the government building of Rosenbad in central Stockholm (Regeringskansliet 2025c). The Adoption Commission was set up as a government committee of inquiry in October 2021 after a critically acclaimed article series on the problem with illegal and irregular adoptions from abroad which the biggest Swedish morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter had run throughout the year and after a parliamentary debate in June of the same year had taken place when all opposition parties together demanded the setting up of an investigative commission. After the release of the final report, the government initiated a referral round which ended in October 2025 and which resulted in around 140 referral responses from practically all existing associations and networks of both adoptees and adoptive parents as well as from various universities, authorities and expert bodies (Regeringskansliet 2025d).
The report bears the title “Sweden’s international adoption activities – lessons learned and the way forward” and consists of over 1,600 pages divided between two thick volumes and it is the most extensive government report so far in any country when it comes to examining unethical and illicit adoptions (Regeringskansliet 2025a, 2025b). As Sweden is the country in the world that has adopted the most foreign-born children per head resulting in a population of over 60,000 adoptees it is arguably also fitting that it has produced the hitherto largest report on the subject.
The Swedish Adoption Commission is an integrated part of an ongoing global process of coming to terms with the past when it comes to the dark sides of transnational adoption, and which concerns a growing number of both Western receiving countries as well as non-Western countries of origin. The most well-known government committee of inquiry in a receiving country is the Dutch Joustra Commission which submitted its final report to the Dutch government in February 2021 and which became world news and lead to the Dutch government apologising to all adoptees in the Netherlands and to a decision to end all transnational adoptions (Commissie onderzoek interlandelijke adoptie 2021). And the most well-known report in a country of origin is South Korea’s 2nd Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report whose main contents were made public at a press conference in Seoul in March 2025, and which also made it into the world news (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea 2025). Since then the report has among others led to the country’s President Lee Jae Myung apologising to all overseas adoptees and their first parents and family members in October 2025 as well as to a decision which was made public in December that the country will phase out all overseas adoptions to the West before 2029.
Similar government committees of inquiry and official reports have since the 2010s also been carried out and published in for example Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Chile and led to various measures and reforms and they are currently under way in countries like Denmark, Norway and Australia. This worldwide process is here named and conceptualised as the global adoption settlement and it is in its turn framed within theories on transitional justice. The settlement takes various forms in different countries, but at the same time they all address similar issues, and they all have implications for future policies concerning transnational adoption as well as for rectifying and punishing abuses and wrongdoings.
During recent years, a growing body of research is also looking into various aspects of this global adoption settlement in both receiving and sending countries in relation to for example Chilean adoptions to the West during the military dictatorship and adoptee activism in the Netherlands and its impact of the previously mentioned Joustra Commission (Monsalvo & Morales 2021; de Vries, de Vos & Cheney 2025). Sophie Withaeckx (2024) has conducted a study of how adoptive parents, adoption organisations and adoptees have reacted to the government committees of inquiry in the Netherlands and Belgium based on Dutch and Belgian media material. Withaeckx finds that parents tend to describe feelings of shock and the organisations a wish to continue with the adoptions from abroad also in the future while many adoptees welcome the findings and also contribute to the complexity as they sometimes express joy over the fact that what they see as the truth is finally acknowledged by the state and by the society at large.
Concerning specific research on the ongoing Swedish adoption settlement, I have myself examined the historical, cultural and political background behind the setting up of the Swedish Adoption Commission which includes a focus on adoptee activism as the political activities of adult adoptees have been so central when it comes to raising awareness about illegal and unethical adoption practices within the Swedish context (Hübinette 2024). Adoptees have for example regularly voiced critical opinions and perspectives in the public sphere, repeatedly contacted and approached authorities and politicians, and continuously informed and alerted the media as well as participating in producing news reports, feature articles and documentaries in order to attract attention to the topic ever since the 1990s and 00s.
Further, I have also been behind another study examining attitudes among Swedish adoptive parents, adoption organisations and adoptees to the Adoption Commission before and during the commission was set up and running covering the time period from February 2021 to June 2025 (Hübinette 2025). This study bears similarities to the one by Withaeckx but at the same time the Swedish adoptive parents seem to be even more reluctant to take in that corruption and abuse have happened compared to the Dutch and Belgian parents and the Swedish adoption organisations are even more refusing to accept any responsibility and guilt compared to the Dutch and Belgian counterparts while the Swedish adoptees appear to be more upset and not the least more politically radical in their demands compared to the Dutch and Belgian adoptees.
This article consists of a qualitative media text study that follows up the aforementioned study and concretely how the Adoption Commission’s report has been received by the Swedish adoption world’s three main stakeholder groups after the release of the commission’s report on June 2 2025 and until October 6 when the referral round ended. This is being done in relation to transitional justice theories and with the following research question as the point of departure: How are adoptive parents, adoption organisations and adoptees reacting and relating to the findings and recommendations of the Adoption Commission’s final report? The next section presents the theoretical framework and the methodology and thereafter follows an account of the reception among the three stakeholder groups in relation to four selected recommendations and themes.
Studying Sweden’s adoption settlement as a truth and reconciliation process
Theories on transitional justice include requests for truth and reconciliation, public apologies, reparations, remedies and criminal justice measures. The principal aim of a transitional justice process is to face and deal with past and/or contemporary abuses, crimes and wrongdoings and it includes both policy approaches and theories concerning how whole societies and individual stakeholders alike may be able to move on into the future. At least four aspects are both common and fundamental in transitional justice processes according to researchers within the field of transitional justice studies such as Ruti G. Teitel (2000) and Line Engbo Gissel (2022): Truth-seeking, reparation to and criminal justice for the victims and institutional reform for the future in order to ensure non-repetition. Additionally and usually, public and official apologies are also a part of many transitional justice processes.
All these aspects are also relevant also in relation to the problem with illegal, corrupt and unethical practices within transnational adoption. Elvira Loibl (2021, 2024), who has studied the issue of illicit adoptions to the Netherlands and Germany argues that there is both an urgent need for government inquiries and official apologies in relation to transnational adoption as well as for both restorative and retributive justice measures.
According to theories on transitional justice, truth is established through such mechanisms as the setting up of government committees of inquiry which can also provide victims with a platform for telling their stories, thereby confirming that past wrongdoings were systematic and simultaneously challenging previously hegemonic narratives (Burchianti 2004; Hayner 2011). The Swedish Adoption Commission was such a truth seeking body and it also opened up for the participation of adoptees. At the same time, according to existing research on processes of transition justice, it also varies greatly how the involved stakeholder groups react to such truth seeking commissions and this also concerns the victim group as for example far from all adoptees are welcoming the current global adoption settlement (Doak, 2011; Sonis, 2009).
The empirical material for this study consists of Swedish language media texts that have been found by searching for all existing texts containing the combined search words “adoption” (adoption) and “inquiry” (utredning) in the biggest Swedish media text database called the Media Archive (Mediearkivet, see https://www.retrievergroup.com/sv/product-mediearkivet). The Media Archive includes both analogue and digital media and text-based and broadcast media as well as old so-called mainstream media and new so-called alternative media belonging to both the radical Right or the radical Left.
The examined texts are mainly deriving from printed newspapers and magazines or from the homepages of newspapers, magazines and radio and television companies and they have all been published from the release of the Adoption Commission’s final report on June 2 2025 and to October 6 2025 when the referral round ended. After that date only about 20 articles on the subject have been published and they have been excluded from the study.
A total search resulted in 471 hits in the Media Archive, and most of the texts are news reports, editorials and columns in which no particular stakeholder group is heard. After having read through all the texts looking for explicit voices of adoptive parents, adoption organisations and adoptees, I found 25 texts containing the voices of adoptive parents, 7 containing the voices of adoption organisations and 65 containing the voices of adoptees. It must here be clarified that the only remaining adoption organisation in Sweden is the Adoption Centre (Adoptionscentrum in Swedish) which means that it is the voice of the Adoption Centre that is heard solely when it comes to organisations. In addition, 1 text contained the voices of first parents and birth relatives and 2 texts contained the voice of the Swedish adoption authority The Family Law and Parental Support Authority but they have not been included within this study. A quite large number of texts include voices from more than one stakeholder group as well as several voices at the same time, meaning that at least around 140 individual voices are being heard in the examined material.
I have categorised the text material according to the following three themes which correspond to some but not all of the various recommendations of the Adoption Commission: 1, an official apology, 2, a resource centre, and 3, a new adoption system. I have also added a fourth theme – the issue of reparation and accountability – even if it was not something that the Adoption Commission had a mandate to investigate. The four themes will from now on be accounted for one by one and I have refrained from naming any of the voices while all translations from Swedish to English are mine.
The theme of an official apology
One recommendation from the Adoption Commission is that a representative from the state and the government and probably the Prime Minister or the Minister of Social Affairs should apologise to all adoptees and directly or indirectly also include their first parents in the countries of origin and their adoptive parents as well as the children and other close family members of adoptees. This proposal is mentioned in 41 of the texts and most of them are in favour of some sort of an apology which among others the Dutch, Swiss, Chilean and South Korean governments have already delivered thereby aligning themselves with so many other transitional justice processes around the world which have encompassed public apologies.
To begin with the parents, several of them both understand and support that adoptees who have been adopted in a wrongful way are deserving an apology (see for example Andersen et al. 2025; Sköld 2025). At the same time, some parents also wonder to whom an apology should be directed such as an adoptive mother who is not opposing an apology but at the same time she asks “to whom it should be addressed” and she ends by writing the following meaning that she herself might not be in need of an apology:
I hope it will be so concrete that it will be understandable, even for those who do not define their adoption as a deep and unhealed gash in their personal biography or who are unsure whether we are among those who should receive an apology or ask for forgiveness. We who have the international adoption practice to thank for the most important thing in our lives. (Bosseldal 2025)
Another parent who is asking a similar question is the current Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who has adopted three children from China, and who in a parliamentary debate shortly after the release the Adoption Commission’s final report said that “should an apology be made from the Swedish side, and if so, to whom and on exactly what grounds?” when pressed about if his government would realize this proposal or not by the leader of the Left Party (Anderberg & Baas 2025). In practice, this means that Prime Minister Kristersson who is the one who will eventually decide if a public apology will be delivered or not is himself problematising this proposal.
The Adoption Centre has in its turn not commented on the issue of an apology while the vast majority of the voices of adoptees are demanding it as part of the beginning of a reparation and reconciliation process (Arnbom et al 2025; Börjesson 2025; Murguz 2025; Sköld & Lundberg 2025). One adoptee also suggests that the apology must be delivered in the form of an official press conference as “the entire Swedish people must know that something has been done wrong” and another adoptee refers explicitly to international law by saying that “a public apology to all adopted persons who are victims of human trafficking and gross irregularities” is “an important symbolic part of a reparation that is required for a reconciliation process to begin when a historical injustice has been committed by a state” (Berkmo 2025; Lindberg 2025).
However, there are also adoptees who do not want an apology at all such as two adoptees who are working for the Adoption Centre and in spite of the fact that one of them has discovered that her adoption was not conducted in a proper way she says that “I don’t need an apology even if my information wasn’t correct” (Anderberg 2025; Linderås 2025). Yet another adoptee who questions the issue of an apology and who is the political editor of one of Sweden’s biggest newspapers writes “what should the state apologize for – and to whom?” and continues by asking “should the apology be made for the fact that the Swedish state allowed international adoptions at all?” thereby implying that an apology is probably not necessary (Lifvendahl 2025).
The theme of a resource centre
The second theme concerns the Adoption Commission’s recommendation to set up a state-run and state financed adoption competency, knowledge and resource centre. The creation of such a resource centre was already proposed in 2003 by another government inquiry which examined Sweden’s adoption activities and post-adoption services, but at that time the proposal was never realized even though equivalent centres exist in other receiving countries such as in the Netherlands (Regeringskansliet 2003). This resource centre would offer practical, legal, social and psychological support to adoptees when it comes to search and reunion, monitor and possibly also conduct research on adoption and offer education and training for sectors that encounter adoptive families and adoptees such as schools and the educational sphere, the health care sector and the social services.
There are several texts that take up this recommendation and both adoptive parents, the Adoption Centre and adoptees are endorsing it. This means that this is the only recommendation which all stakeholders fully support. When it comes to the voices of the parents, they are all for a state-run resource centre as well as the betterment of other post-adoption services (see for example Andersen et al. 2025; Dahlberg 2025). However, when it comes to the support coming from the Adoption Centre it is at the same time a bit ironic that the organisation is behind the setting up of a resource centre. This is because the proposal in 2003 was probably discarded as the Adoption Centre’s then chairperson Prime Minister UIf Kristersson was highly critical towards the inquiry as such as it wanted to put an end to the donation system which required parents to donate large sums of money to the agencies in the countries of origin apart from the fixed adoption fees, and which became the impetus for corrupt adoption practices.
Concerning the voices of the adoptees, they are not just rallying behind the idea of a resource centre as many of them are also demanding that Swedish society must strengthen all possible support to adoptees in general “to restore to people the dignity they have been deprived of, to heal unhealed wounds and to spread knowledge about the lives and true stories of adoptees” as well as “to prevent more suicides among the adoptee group” given the record high suicide rate among them while others ask for “free psychiatric counselling and unlimited free DNA tests” (Johansson 2025; Länsberg 2025; Nam 2025). The idea of a resource centre and other proposals coming from the Adoption Commission which seek to support adoptees to for example find their first parents are well in line with transitional justice processes around the world as it centres on supporting the victims.
The theme of a new adoption system
The most frequent recommendation that is taken up in the examined text material is the issue of a new Swedish adoption system which turns up in 87 of the texts and it is also the most contested recommendation. This proposal is about stripping all private actors and organisations from the right to conduct any adoptions from abroad, which means that the last existing adoption organisation the Adoption Centre would eventually go bankrupt and be forced to dissolve itself. In relation to theories on transitional justice, the recommendation is an example of an institutional reform for the future aiming at putting a stop to wrongdoings and ensure that they cannot be repeated.
The remaining adoptions of foreign-born children by Swedes would be administrated by the Swedish state and it would only concern adoptions where the adopter has an already existing relationship to the child such as when immigrants in Sweden adopt a relative from their countries of origin or when expat Swedes adopt children in another country which they already are caring for. In practice, this would mean the end of transnational adoption in its classical form when Swedish adults pay money to a private organisation to get an adopted child to whom the adopter has no relationship to at all. Several receiving countries such as for example Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands have already installed a state-run adoption system and apart from that some of them have also decided to phase out all adoptions from abroad.
Beginning with the parents, almost all the voices of the adoptive parents are against this proposal and instead argue for the continuation of the present adoption system as they perceive the proposal to be the same as a total stop for all adoptions from abroad (see for example Bolander & Lindeborg 2025; Teimouri 2025). One adoptive mother who at the same time is aware that her own child was adopted illegally argues for continuous adoptions also in the future while at the same time asking for an increased state control (Skarin 2025). An adoptive parent couple also claims that the adoptees are combatting racism in Sweden and are contributing to the diversity of the country by the way of having “another appearance” and like some other parents they seem to suspect that this recommendation can be linked to the rise of the far right and in the end caused by racism (Thews & Thews 2025). The almost only exception among the voices of the parents is an op-ed article written by 12 adoptive parents who together declare that they stand behind all recommendations of the Adoption Commission including a new adoption system and who write the following:
Adoption of children between countries should always be legally secure and be the last opportunity for a child to have their own family, and if this cannot be guaranteed, the practice needs to be stopped (Andersen et al. 2025)
The Adoption Centre is strongly against a state-run system as it would mean the end of the organisation and the main argument is that children will be forced to grow up at institutions if they don’t get adopted by Swedes and other Westerners (Eriksson & Torstensson 2025; Thornéus 2025). One representative of the organisation also claims that the Adoption Commission’s chairperson Professor Anna Singer argues that orphanages are better than adoptions in order to undermine the credibility of the whole inquiry (Aganović 2025).
The voices of the adoptees are divided among those who want a continuation of the current adoption system and those who want to see a final end to transnational adoptions including the cessation of the Adoption Centre. The first group of adoptees argue that a stricter control of today’s adoptions are better than a stop and some of them are also aware that their own adoptions where irregular while others say that they are so grateful for having been adopted or that they have a happy life and therefore they want others to be adopted to Sweden also in the future (Björck 2025; Ekström 2025; Ljung 2025). One adoptee also argues that a new adoption system would result in the collective stigmatization of adoptees as they would all be marked with the public image of having been trafficked and like some parent voices he also connects the proposal to the growth of the far right and indirectly as an outcome of racism (Forselius 2025).
When it comes to adoptees who are standing behind this proposal of the Adoption Commission some but far from all know that their adoptions were criminal (see for example Arnbom et al. 2025; Lindberg 2025; Martinsgård 2025). Several adoptees also link the proposal to the situation of adoptees in Sweden who are proportionally the most affected by suicide attempts and accomplished suicides in addition to suffering from staggering levels of mental illness and social problems in general. One adoptee who is doing that writes the following:
As long as we cannot ensure that adoptions go smoothly and adoptees get what they need to feel well, international adoptions should be put on hold. We are talking about small people, and none of us have chosen to be adopted away from our home countries. Many adoptees are doing well, but far from all of them. How can we ensure that everything goes smoothly and the children get what they need? (Signeul 2025)
Yet another adoptee who is endorsing a new adoption system is active within a political party and she says in an interview that she will try to make her party to vote for an “immediate ban on international adoptions to Sweden” at the next party congress while she at the same time underlines that she herself have had a good life in Sweden to counter the image that only unhappy and unsuccessful adoptees are standing behind this recommendation (Bergh 2025).
Finally, a general public poll from 2025 shows that 45% of the respondents who had an opinion is against the Adoption Commissions’ recommendation to stop adoptions from abroad while 13% are for it (SOM-institutet 2026: 89). More men (15%) than women (10%) support the recommendation, as do more pensioners (17%) than young people (11%), and more low-educated people (24%) than high-educated people (12%), as well as more who consider themselves to be clearly on the left plus slightly on the right (16-17%) compared to those who consider themselves to be slightly on the left (10%). As for the opposition to the recommendation, 50% of the women and 40% of the men are against it, and the same applies to 50% of the young people (16-29 years old) compared to 33% of the pensioners. Furthermore, 51% of the highly educated are against the proposal, compared to 26% of the low-educated, and 52% of those who are clearly on the left are against it (i.e. this group is in other words highly divided on the issue), compared to 42% of those who are clearly on the right. Women and younger people as well as the highly educated as well as those who stand to the left, are in other words generally more pro-adoption compared to other groups.
The theme of reparation and accountability
The fourth theme is divided between the issue of reparation and the issue of accountability and here it has to be pointed out that neither the question of reparation including economic compensation nor the question of accountability including criminal justice were included within the government’s directives to the Adoption Commission. At the same time both the issue of reparation and the issue of accountability are necessary ingredients for the accomplishment of a transitional justice process.
The issue of reparation is in practice solely raised by adoptees which among others call for financial compensation to the victims of corrupt and illegal adoptions while adoptive parents are silent on this issue (see for example Haraldsson 2025; Lindberg 2025). Some of the adoptee voices also express that they would rather prefer an economic compensation instead of a public apology while others say that they do want a public apology while at the same time no money can replace what has been stolen and lost for them in relation to their first parents in the countries of origin (Berkmo 2025; Sköld & Lundberg 2025a).
One text consists of an op-ed article in the biggest Swedish tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet which has been written by five associations and networks for adoptees and it argues for the setting up of a redress investigation modelled after the governmental inquiry of abuse or neglect (Vanvårdsutredningen in Swedish) from 2006 which investigated former children that had been placed in foster homes or at institutions before 1980 and who had been abused physically or sexually, and which led to an economic compensation amounting to 250,000 Swedish crowns (or 22,000 euros) each to about 2,200 of them (Arnbom et al. 2025). The representatives of the five associations and networks end their op-ed article by demanding that “in a similar way, we adoptees who were adopted despite Swedish authorities being aware of the irregularities should be compensated as well as receive an official apology” thereby arguing that also adoptees who know that they have been adopted in an illegal and irregular way should be economically compensated by the state.
The issue of accountability is also fully dominated by the voices of adoptees while the adoptive parents are silent also concerning this theme. Many adoptees are both critical towards the Swedish state and the organisations and principally the Adoption Centre as it persistently refuses to take on any responsibility and guilt. In a long interview with Dagens Nyheter two representatives from the organisation in question say that “there are no signs that we have committed any crimes” and that the Adoption Commission “has not listened to us or taken into account what is positive about adoption” and this attitude has permeated the Adoption Centre ever since the criminal adoptions from Chile became known in Sweden in 2018 (Sköld & Lundberg 2025b). In another interview one representative from the Adoption Centre says that “we don’t recognise that image of irregularities or forged documents” in connection to adoptions from Chile, Colombia and South Korea even though all these countries were selected as focus countries by the Adoption Commission which found widespread irregularities concerning all three of them (Eriksson & Torstensson 2025).
The most common demand from the side of adoptees when it comes to the issue of accountability is that Sweden must ratify the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance which would make it possible for adoptees to report to the police that they have been trafficked and to allow for the prosecution of former and current employees of the Swedish adoption organisations, which is at the moment not possible due to the current statute of limitations amounting to 25 years (Arnbom et al. 2025). In July 2025 an individual adoptee from Ethiopia who is also an author chose to report a number of former employees of the organisations to the police for trafficking, forgery, misconduct and other crimes and one of them was Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson who was the chairman of the Adoption Centre in the 2000s and who then silenced the knowledge about the illegal adoptions from Chile as well as falsely ensuring that the adoptions from China followed the rules (Platten 2025; Rogneby 2025). However, the police never even opened an investigation even if the adoptee author referred to the final report of the Adoption Commission and earlier attempts by other adoptees to report former or current employees of the organisation to the police have also never led to any police investigation being initiated.
Discussion and conclusion
After having accounted for how the Swedish adoption world’s three stakeholder groups have received and related and reacted to the Adoption Commission’s report and to four selected proposals and themes between 2 June 2025, when its final report became public, and until October 6 which was the final date for submitting referral responses to the government, it is clear that the adoptees are backing up the recommendations the most. Most adoptees are for an official apology and for a resource centre and many are for a new adoption system and for measures related to the issue of reparation and accountability. Even if several adoptees are against a new adoption system and some also against an apology in general the group is without doubt more favourable towards the Adoption Commission compared to the adoptive parents and the only remaining adoption organisation the Adoption Centre.
The Adoption Centre is in its turn the stakeholder voice that is the most against Adoption Commission’s recommendations and which is not a surprising finding given that the organisation has a prominent and not so enviable place in the commission’s final report as having been behind numerous irregular and illegal adoptions and as the proposal for a new state-run adoption system would mean the end of it. The exception is the issue of a resource centre which all stakeholder groups are standing behind in unison. Concerning the adoptive parents they are generally silent on the issue of reparation and accountability and some of them are questioning the issue of a public apology and when it comes to a new adoption system most parents side with the Adoption Centre by being against this proposal.
So in relation to theories on transitional justice, not all but most adoptees are both advocating truth-seeking, reparation, justice and institutional reform plus an apology while the Adoption Centre is against all these fundamental ingredients of a transitional justice process and the parents are in general against institutional reform while also being silent on the other aspects.
Lastly, when it comes to what has happened after October 2025, on February 11 2026 the Minister for Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall invited representatives from all three stakeholder groups to a so-called roundtable discussion at the Swedish Government Offices in Stockholm where she informed the participants that some of the recommendations will be realised. All parties in the parliament are for the ratification of the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, for a resource centre and for an official apology and several of them are also for a new adoption system according to an overview of the Swedish public service radio from the end of June 2025 and according to what became known during a seminar on the Adoption Commission’s recommendations in the Swedish parliament which took place in November 2025 (Garcia 2025). Finally on May 28 2026, the government followed up on the roundtable discussion and announced that one recommendation will come to light before the end of 2026, namely a resource center which will be placed in Stockholm and which the Swedish adoption authority The Family Law and Parental Support Authority (MFoF) will be responsible for and run.
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Haraldsson, Emilia. 2025. Tobias Hübinette om adoptionsutredningen: Kristersson största bromsklossen [Tobias Hübinette on the adoption investigation: Kristersson the biggest obstacle]. Proletären 12 June.
Hayner, Priscilla B. 2011. Unspeakable truths. Transitional justice and the challenge of truth commissions. 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.
Hübinette, Tobias. 2024. Sweden at a crossroads: The struggle for finding the truth about transnational adoption in the world’s leading adopting nation. Adoption & Culture 12(2), 158–176.
Hübinette, Tobias. 2025. The Swedish adoption world and the process of coming to terms with transnational adoption. Genealogy 9(3)
Johansson, Susanna. 2025. Ingen har brytt sig om hur vi mår – vi ska bara vara tacksamma för att vi har fått komma hit [No one has cared about how we are feeling – we should just be grateful that we got to come here]. Göteborgs-Posten 21 June, p4.
Länsberg, Amelie. 2025. Marie stals från sin mamma som tvååring [Marie was stolen from her mother at the age of two]. Skaraborg Allehanda 26 July, p32-33.
Lifvendahl, Tove. 2025. Statens bästa är inte barnets bästa [The best interests of the state are not the best interests of the child]. Svenska Dagbladet: Ledare 8 June, p2.
Lindberg, Helen. 2025. Stålmannen vill också veta sitt ursprung [Superman also wants to know his origins]. Nerikes Allehanda 20 July, s2.
Linderås, Josefin. 2025. Den enda med veto är den biologiska modern [The only one with a veto is the biological mother]. Kyrkans Tidning 24 12 June, p5.
Ljung, Hanna. 2025. För Johanna blev den felaktiga adoptionen räddningen [For Johanna, the wrongful adoption was her salvation]. Norrköpings Tidningar 19 August, p8-9.
Loibl, Elvira. 2021. The aftermath of transnational illegal adoptions: Redressing human rights violations in the intercountry adoption system with instruments of transitional justice. Childhood 28: 477–491.
Loibl, Elvira. 2024. Receiving states’ obligations in the aftermath of illegal intercountry adoptions as enforced dis-appearances.
Loibl, Elvira & Smolin, David M (red.), Facing the past. Policies and good practices for responses to illegal intercountry adoptions, 279–306. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing.
Lundberg, Patrik & Josefin Sköld. 2026. Regeringen har ännu inte bett adopterade om ursäkt [The government has not yet apologized to adoptees]. Dagens Nyheter 26 April, p11.
Martinsgård, Ingela. 2025. Mikael kidnappades som bebis – välkomnar adoptionsförbud [Mikael was kidnapped as a baby – welcomes an adoption ban]. P4 Sörmland 17 June.
Monsalve, Karen Alfaro & José Luis Morales. 2021. Chilean children adopted by Swedish families. Diplomatic proximity in times of Cold War (1973-1990). Historia Crítica 81, 71–94.
Nam, Danjel. 2025. Mina adoptivföräldrar fick höra att jag var ett hittebarn – det var jag inte [My adoptive parents were told I was a foundling – I wasn’t]. Dagens Nyheter: Kultur 17 July, p2-3.
Platten, Corinne. 2025. Därför polisanmäler jag statsministern.
Regeringskansliet. 2003. Adoption – till vilket pris? [Adoption – at what price?] Stockholm: Fritzes.
Regeringskansliet. 2025a. Sveriges internationella adoptionsverksamhet. Lärdomar och vägen framåt. Volym 1. Betänkande av Adoptionskommissionen [Sweden’s international adoption activities. Lessons learned and the way forward. Volume 1. Report of the Adoption Commission]. Stockholm: Elanders.
Regeringskansliet. 2025b. Sveriges internationella adoptionsverksamhet. Lärdomar och vägen framåt. Volym 1. Betänkande av Adoptionskommissionen [Sweden’s international adoption activities. Lessons learned and the way forward. Volume 2. Report of the Adoption Commission]. Stockholm: Elanders.
Regeringskansliet. 2025c. Regeringen har tagit emot Adoptionskommissionens betänkande [The Government has received the Adoption Commission’s report]. Regeringskansliet June 2
Regeringskansliet. 2025d. Remiss av SOU 2025:61 Sveriges internationella adoptionsverksamhet [Referral of SOU 2025:61 Sweden’s international adoption activities]. Regeringskansliet October 31
Rogneby, Jenny. 2025. Här är brotten som svenska aktörer kan ha begått [Here are the crimes that Swedish actors may have committed]. Dagens Nyheter 7 June, p5.
Rogneby, Jenny. 2025. Det handlar om grova brott” [This is why I’m reporting the Prime Minister to the police – It’s about serious crimes]. Dagens ETC 31 July, p8.
Signeul, Anna. 2025. Lägg alla internationella adoptioner på is [Put all international adoptions on hold]. Dagens Nyheter 11 June, p12.
Sköld, Josefin. 2025. Adoptivmamman Fanny Widlund: Stoppa inte adoptionern [Adoptive mother Fanny Widlund: Don’t stop the adoptions]. Dagens Nyheter 26 June, p. 8.
Sköld, Josefin & Patrik Lundberg. 2025a. Adopterade positiva till erkännande – hoppas på ekonomisk ersättning [Adoptees positive to recognition – and hoping for financial compensation]. Dagens Nyheter 2 June.
Sköld, Josefin & Patrik Lundberg. 2025b. Adoptionscentrum: Medarbetare kan ha varit inblandade [The Adoption Centre: Employees may have been involved]. Dagens Nyheter 2 June, p6-7.
SOM-institutet. 2026. Allmänhetens åsikter om politiska förslag 2025 [Public opinion on political proposals in 2025]. Göteborgs universitet: SOM-institutet.
Sonis, Jeffrey. 2009. Survivor studies. The importance of evaluating effects of truth commissions. I Hugo van der Merwe, Victoria Baxter & Audrey R. Chapman (red.), Assessing the impact of transitional justice. Challenges for empirical research, 191–226 Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press.
Thews, Karin & Jan Thews. 2025. Stäng inte dörren för internationella adoptioner [Don’t close the door to international adoptions]. Dagens Nyheter 8 June, p32.
Teimouri, Arman. 2025. DN Debatt Repliker: Vad händer när barnets bästa inte finns i det egna landet? [DN Debate Replies: What happens when the best interests of the child are not in their own country?]. Dagens Nyheter 4 June.
Teitel, Ruti G. 2000. Transitional justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Thornéus, Ebba. 2025. Kritik mot förslag om adoptionsförbud: ’Ingen bra lösning [Criticism of the proposal to ban adoption: Not a good solution ]. Aftonbladet 3 June.
Thornéus, Ebba. 2025. Kritik mot förslag om adoptionsförbud: ’Ingen bra lösning [Criticism of the proposal to ban adoption: Not a good solution ]. Aftonbladet 3 June.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea. 2025. Human rights violation in intercountry adoption. Seoul: Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea.
de Vries, Shila Khuki, Sarah Janaki Peshala de Vos & Kristen E. Cheney. 2025. If we do not speak out, no one else will’. Adoptee activism and its impact on intercountry adoption in the Netherlands. Genealogy 9(4).
Withaeckx, Sophie. 2024. The baby and the bathwater. Resisting adoption reform. I Elvira Loibl & David M. Smolin (red.), Facing the past. Policies and good practices for responses to illegal intercountry adoptions, 253–276. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing.
Resources
Investigations into intercountry adoptions by numerous countries