Anna Singer appointed inquiry chair in the Swedish Government’s inquiry into adoptions
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Private Law Professor Anna Singer at the Faculty of Law in Uppsala University has been appointed the inquiry chair to investigate possible irregularities in international adoptions to Sweden.
On 27 October 2021, the Minister for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren announced that the Swedish Government will set up an inquiry to investigate and clarify the circumstances surrounding international adoptions to Sweden from the 1950s to the present day: in relation to the countries of origin from which the most adoptions to Sweden have occurred; and on the one hand, concerning the countries of origin where strong suspicions exist that irregularities have occurred. The inquiry will map and analyse how the rules, organisation and processes within Sweden’s international adoption procedures have functioned looking back in time until now. The aim is to clarify the incidence of irregularities in Sweden’s international adoption procedures and how different actors in such cases have reacted and related to such cases.
The inquiry will also identify needs for adoption-specific support and propose what assistance and support measures should be offered and has the aim of providing guidance for the development of Sweden’s international adoption procedures moving forward.
The appointed inquiry chair is Anna Singer, Professor in Private Law specialising in Family Law, whose previous research has focused on questions related to the rights of the child; in particular the child’s right to parents and family, where adoption is one way of acting in the best interests of the child.
“I am very honoured to have been entrusted with heading this inquiry, which is of course very important. With the fairly broad terms of reference that we have, I hope that we will also be able to reach important conclusions,” says Anna Singer.
“In many respects, this is a very important inquiry because it deals with questions that affect many people – the adopted children, their birth parents and the adopting parents – in a very vital way. One difficulty for the inquiry is that it covers a long period of time and a number of countries. The terms of reference name adoptions from Chile and China as particularly important to review, but we will probably be looking at adoptions from more countries.”
The inquiry report will be presented by 7 November 2023 at the latest.
Maria Cicilaki