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🇩🇰 Denmark /Culture & Society

Adoptees from four countries to receive help tracing their biological roots

From Berlingske · () Danish

Translated from Danish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Press release Official statement New plan
  • Denmark will place four employees at embassies in South Korea, India, Vietnam and Lebanon to help adoptees access records held in their countries of origin.
  • The program will run until mid-2028 and follows a political agreement that allocated more than 19 million kroner for the effort.
  • The initiative comes after the closure of Danish International Adoptions in 2024 and reports of illegal adoption practices involving several countries.

Adoptees in Denmark from South Korea, India, Vietnam and Lebanon will get help searching for information about their origins and biological families through a new cooperation between Denmark and the four countries' embassies.

Adoptees already have the right to access their Danish adoption files through the Danish Appeals Board. The new arrangement aims to help them obtain records held in the country where the adoption began, a process that can involve different authorities, rules and countries.

Four employees will work from the embassies until mid-2028. Their initial task will be to build networks and identify relevant authorities and organizations, giving adoptees a clearer picture of where they can seek information about their cases.

Very human and, not least, understandable to have questions about where you come from.

· Monika RubinThe Danish social affairs minister explained why adoptees should receive help investigating their origins.

Social Affairs Minister Monika Rubin said it was “very human and, not least, understandable to have questions about where you come from.” She added: “It can be a difficult process across countries, authorities and different rules, and you should not have to stand alone.”

The initiative follows years of crisis in Denmark's international adoption sector. Danish International Adoptions, the country's only international adoption agency for many years, closed in 2024 after reports of illegal adoptions from South Korea, India and Ethiopia. The cases included allegations that intermediaries who profited from sending children to Denmark persuaded parents to give up their children.

A 2024 report by the Danish Appeals Board found that some South Korean children adopted to Denmark had been registered as orphaned foundlings even though they were not. It also described large money transfers between Danish and South Korean organizations and said Danish agencies in the 1970s and 1980s knew that South Korean partners could alter infants' identities. After the agency closed, Denmark paused placement work involving all countries.

It can be a difficult process across countries, authorities and different rules, and you should not have to stand alone.

· Monika RubinRubin described the practical challenges adoptees face when seeking records abroad.
About this summary

Originally published by Berlingske in Danish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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