The aftermath of transnational illegal adoptions: Redressing human rights violations in the intercountry adoption system with instruments of transitional justice

Abstract

A growing movement of illegally adopted individuals request remedies and reparations for the human rights violations that they and their biological families had suffered. This article explores a number of measures that the stakeholders in the receiving countries can use in an effort to repair the human rights violations caused by illegal intercountry adoptions, borrowing ideas from transitional justice. In order to effectively redress the harm inflicted upon victims of illegal adoptions, a policy on remedies should combine instruments of retributive justice, aimed at holding wrongdoers accountable, with measures of restorative justice that focus on the victims’ needs and interests.

Irregular adoptions in the Ethiopian-Spanish context: Strategies to redress the adoption triad

“…The strong pressure to “obtain” children has “produced” intermediaries or so-called “children finders” exploiting the vulnerability of birth families from the Global South to supply the intercountry adoption business (Cantwell, 2003; Clemente-Martínez, 2022). Although these fraudulent and illicit practices are widespread worldwide, we focus on the Ethiopian context, inspired by the research of Bunkers et al (2012), Rotabi (2010), Mezmur (2010, 2015), Gallego (2014), Hailu (2017), San Román and Rotabi (2017), Loibl (2021), Steenrod (2021), Cheney (2023), Loibl and McKenzie (2023). They have exposed illicit adoption practices, including cases of false orphans, false promises, and other types of deception, coercion, and intentional manipulation to convince Ethiopian birth families to give their children up for adoption.…”

“…The UN definition of “reparation”, adopted in 2005, stipulates that victims 2 of wrongful acts should be entitled to “reparation”, which can manifest in several forms: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition (Loibl, 2021; Torpey, 2015; UN, 2005). Reparation can include a range of measures, from economic compensation to rehabilitation, restitution, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition.…”

Traces in the History of Swedish Transnational Adoption—A Diffractive Mapping through the Voices of Adoptees and Their Parents

“…Lundberg et al 2021Lundberg et al , 2022, and even state investigations. In the Netherlands, a government commission found so many abuses in the country's history of transnational adoption that the government decided to freeze all intercountry adoptions for several years (Joustra 2021;Loibl 2021). Similar investigations have been carried out or are underway in several other European countries, including Sweden (Loibl 2021;Socialdepartementet 2021).…”

“…In the Netherlands, a government commission found so many abuses in the country's history of transnational adoption that the government decided to freeze all intercountry adoptions for several years (Joustra 2021;Loibl 2021). Similar investigations have been carried out or are underway in several other European countries, including Sweden (Loibl 2021;Socialdepartementet 2021). As recently as January 2024, Sweden's neighboring countries, Norway and Denmark, halted nearly all transnational adoptions due to allegations of stolen children and falsified paperwork (Mfof 2024).…”

Section Two – Introduction Multiplicity and Fundamental Inequality of Childhoods in South Asia

“…vulnerability. One might think here of the child soldiers in Sri Lanka (Gates & Reich, 2010), of illegal international adoptions in the wake of civil war and poverty in this country as well (Loibl, 2021), of children who grow up in the area of border conflicts between India and Pakistan (Malik, 2020), of so-called "street children" in India without families or with parents who themselves had been "street children" (Dutta, 2018), of the enormously high proportion of working children in very agricultural Nepal (ILO, 2014), of children in hazardous work in Bangladesh (Hoque, 2022), of the children of the Rohingiya refugees in Bangladesh (Hoque, 2021) this list could go on for a long time.…”