Embargo 27.9.2024, 10am
The two cantons of Zurich and Thurgau responded to the Federal Council's instruction in 2020 by launching an investigation into intercountry adoptions. As India was the most common country of origin, the study focuses on intercountry adoptions of Indian children. It concludes that numerous legal provisions were violated throughout the adoption process, from the moment the children were taken into care to the final approval of the adoptions. To this day, the children's origins remain uncertain and their mothers unknown.
During the period covered by the study,India was the most common country of origin of children brought to Switzerland for adoption. The research in India focused on the state of Maharashtra and the capital Mumbai (formerly Bombay), as this city was an important centre for the intercountry adoption agencies. Between 1979 and 2002, 2,278 children from India were adopted in Switzerland. Of these, 256 were adopted in the canton of Zurich and 30 in the canton of Thurgau. The placements were mainly arranged through Roman Catholic contacts in India.
The project employed historical, cultural and social science approaches. It involved extensive analyses of source materials in the Zurich, Thurgau, St Gallen, Appenzell-Ausserrhoden and Bern cantonal archives, the Zurich and Winterthur city archives, the Swiss FederalArchives and Swiss Social Archives. For the first time, the researchers were able to gain access to numerous case files of individual children brought from India to Switzerland for adoption. The archival research was supplemented byinterviews with adoptees and adoptive parents in Switzerland, ethnographic research in India and interviews with legal, medical and social services professionals in both countries.
Failure by the authorities and lack of compliance with legal regulations in the adoption of Indian children
An analysis of a sample of 24 cases (ZH:18/TG: 6) revealed that verified personal details about both the child and their parents or mother were missing in all cases. Furthermore, in many cases the foster and prospective adoptive parents received the authorization to take in a foster child too late, i.e. only once the child had already entered Switzerland. Most of the children were also inadequately represented by an appointed guardian while in foster care. It should also be noted that Zurich district councils and the Thurgau government council approved adoption cases inwhich the mother’s declaration of consent to the relinquishment of her parental rights (deed of surrender) were missing from the application. An analysis of 48adoptions (ZH: 18/TG: 30) showed that these Indian documents were lacking in every case. Seven agencies were involved in the procedures: Adoption Unity run by Christina Inderbitzin (ZH), the association Adoption International (TG/BE),Alice Honegger (SG), Terre des Hommes (VD), Helga Ney (VD), Jo Millar’s Divali Adoption Service (GE) and Seraphisches Liebeswerk (SO). The finding that the mother’s deed of surrender was systematically missing from the case files is an indication that these documents could also be missing from the files of Indian children adopted in other cantons. It also casts doubt on the legality of the adoption decisions in these cases.
Inadequate supervision of the agencies
The Thurgau cantonal authorities fulfilled their duty of oversight with regard to the association Adoption International, which was founded in Kreuzlingen in1980. In 1982, when the association was grappling with internal issues concerning its mission, finances and employees, the supervisory authority demanded to know what was going on. Shortly afterwards, Adoption International moved to the canton of Bern.
DThe youth welfare office in the canton of Zurich did not fulfil its duty of oversight in this case. It allowed Christina Inderbitzin to continue bringing Indian children to Switzerland for years, from1978 to early 1984, without a licence. Moreover, it was aware of the landmark judgment by the Bombay High Court, whose assessment of her cooperation partner in India was hardly favourable. In 1982, the court found that the man, also a trusted provider of legal services for the Swiss consulate general in Bombay,was engaged in a lucrative operation illegally transferring children from across India. He had been deceiving the court by falsifying the children’s place of residence. In 1984, the youth welfare office nevertheless granted Christina Inderbitzin permission to arrange foster placements in cooperation with her Indian partner.
A total of 15 Swiss adoption agencies were active in India, some of them for years without the proper authorization. The Swiss authorities were made aware of various abuses. In 1982, for example, they learned that an Indian mother had wanted to reclaim her child, who had been taken to Switzerland. An Ingenbohl nun in New Delhi had falsely declared under oath that the child had been abandoned and the child’s parents were ‘unknown’.
The situation in India: financial agreements, scandals and subsequent restrictions
From the 1960s onwards, intercountry adoption became established in India as a specific form of foster placement. Children's homes and women's shelters, such as those run by the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa), took in children from private persons, the police or hospitals and handed them over to Swiss adoption agencies or private persons. Adoption developed into a lucrative source of income. Financial agreements existed between the Swiss agencies and Indian institutions whereby the former would provide funding in exchange for children.
Abuses and scandals in the 1980s sparked debate in India criticising intercountry adoption, resulting in the restriction of the practice and the development of new standards. Nevertheless, the Indian institutions (adoption agencies, lawyers and courts) retained a great deal of leeway, for example in their handling of information about the children’s backgrounds and the details of their birth parents. The documents that reached Switzerland contained only imprecise descriptions of where the children came from or used standard formulations such as ‘mother unknown’. In none of the cases examined was there a declaration of consent from the child’s mother.
Birth mothers: unknown and invisible
The mothers were erased from the documentation and also from the public consciousness. The perspectives of mothers who relinquished their parental rights have been and continue to be largely overlooked by actors in the Indian adoption system. It is argued that this is what the mothers want. The silence is intended to shield the mother and the life she makes for herself following separation from her baby. To understand this reasoning, we need to look at why mothers gave up their babies.Women separated from their children for various reasons. The social stigma attached to single motherhood was an important factor. Poverty, illness or the birth of a girl child also played a role. Some women became single mothers as a result of a romantic relationship with a partner their community deemed unacceptable because of differences in religion or caste. Others became mothers as a result of extramarital affairs, rape or obstacles to abortion. Although some institutions offered assistance to unmarried mothers, this was often conditional on the relinquishment of the baby. The most common way for women to reintegrate into society after separation from their baby was through an arranged marriage..
Following the separation, the children in India spent time in one or more institutions.Those placed with hopeful adoptive parents in another country frequently experienced health-related, mental or educational challenges in their later lives.
Family life and the search for origins: the challenges faced by adoptees and adoptive parents
The primary motivations for adoption among couples in Zurich and Thurgau were childlessness, the pursuit of a family ideal or humanitarian reasons. Wanting to adopt a child from India specifically was (not usually) a criterion. The adoptive families received little support from health and education services and were largely left to deal with issues of belonging and racism on their own.When their children began to take an interest in their origins, the latter usually only had access to incomplete or incoherent information. If as adults,now or in the future, they set out to find out more about their biological parents, many will fail because the only way to access information is through the adoption agencies and the Indian court archives, in which the files remain largely under seal. Their situation also raises the legal and ethical question as to whether the right of the child to know where they came from should take precedence over the right or presumed wish of their mother to remain anonymous.
Conclusion
The stigma attached to childless marriage in Switzerland and to single motherhood in India created a supply and demand that were also intertwined with financial interests. The Swiss authorities were aware of and facilitated numerous cases in which children from India were brought to Switzerland for adoption in problematic or illegal circumstances.Our research findings raise the question of the legality of adoption decisions made under such conditions. Lastly, in cases where children are given up for adoption without proper documentation, abduction and forced disappearance cannot be ruled out.
Recommendations
- A fundamental assessment should be carried out of the legality of adoption decisions issued in the absence of a declaration of consent by the Indian parents or mothers to the voluntary relinquishment of their parental rights. This must not entail disadvantages for the adoptees. An institutionalised, interdisciplinary task force should be tasked with checking documentation at the request of adoptees and supporting them in their search for their origins. Switzerland should work with India to clarify how those affected can gain access to their Indian court files in order to assert their right to knowledge of their origins.
- The supervisory authorities should require the Swiss adoption agencies, together with affiliated aid organisations and foundations, to disclose their financial flows. When the Swiss adoption agencies cease to operate, the supervisory authorities must assume their obligation to ensure the continued retention of records.
- Switzerland should only permit the adoption of children from countries that have ratified the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and that can demonstrate that women are able to exercise their reproductive rights and freedom of choice.
- A national research programme (NRP) should examine intercountry adoptions in depth on a country-by-country basis. Research should also explore contemporary reproductive practices such as surrogacy and other alternative paths to parenthood and their intergenerational consequences.
Further information
www.adoptionresearch.ch
The website www.adoptionresearch.ch aims to make the findings of this research project accessible to a wider public. From January 2025, it will also be accessible in English. The website supplements academic content with additional interviews, photos, audio clips and videos to provide an accessible insight into the intercountry adoption of children from India. The materials are also suitable for teaching.
‘Mother unknown’ (Chronos)
Mother Unknown: Adoption of Children from India in the Cantons of Zurich and Thurgau, 1973–2002 (Andrea Abraham, Sabine Bitter,Rita Kesselring, ed.) is published by Chronos. The book can be downloaded for free in e-book (open access) format at https://www.chronos-verlag.ch/node/28771. The English translation will be published by Chronos in e-book format in January 2025.
19.9.2024
