How it started
The research project on intercountry adoption was carried out in collaboration with the University of St Gallen and Bern University of Applied Sciences. The research team investigated the adoptions of children from India in the cantons of Zurich and Thurgau. The start of the historical timeframe selected for the study is 1973, a year in which important changes to adoption legislation came into force in Switzerland.[FN1 Ordinance of 28 March 1973 on Adoption Placement.] The year 2002 was chosen as an end date because in 2003, Switzerland's ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption transferred oversight of adoption placement in Switzerland to the federal government.
In Switzerland, the project focused on adoptions from India because the majority of children who were brought to Switzerland for adoption during this timeframe were from this South Asian country. The research in India focused on the state of Maharashtra and the capital Mumbai (formerly Bombay), as the institutions that worked with Swiss adoption agencies were mostly concentrated in this area.
The research project was carried out with funding from the Zurich and Thurgau cantonal authorities in response to the Federal Council's instruction to the cantons in 2020 to thoroughly investigate the issue, in order to obtain a comprehensive overview of the intercountry adoption system in Switzerland.[FN2 Illegal adoptions of children from Sri Lanka. Historical review, search for origins, outlook. Federal Council report in response to the Rebecca Ruiz postulate 17.4181 of 14 December 2017.]
As well as contributing to efforts to deal with the past, it also sought to feed into the debate on current adoption practice and emerging issues including surrogacy, and to offer recommendations for better international cooperation in this field to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.
Research
The study examines how children from India came to be placed for adoption in Switzerland, specifically in the cantons of Zurich and Thurgau, and identifies the actors involved in both countries. It also describes the Indian institutions from which the children were placed for adoption in Switzerland and the socio-cultural milieu of the prospective adoptive parents in the two cantons, highlighting the issues and obstacles faced by adoptive families.
The research traces the children's journey, beginning with the circumstances of conception, pregnancy, birth, and the children's subsequent separation from their mothers, who were mostly unmarried. It also examines the legal basis for the placements and legal practice in Switzerland and India.
On the basis of their research, the authors provide insights into intercountry adoption, a chapter of the history of foster placement in Switzerland on which there had been little research, and show the workings of a complex system in which the aspirations of childless couples became intertwined with financial interests, questionable legal practices, inadequate child protection and failures on the part of the authorities.
Methodology
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 Federal Archives 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 by interviews with adoptees and adoptive parents in Switzerland, ethnographic research in India and interviews with legal, medical and social welfare professionals in both countries.
Findings
The project's findings are available in the following publications:
The book
The book Mutter unbekannt. Adoptionen aus Indien in den Kantonen Zürich und Thurgau, 1973–2002 was published by Chronos on 27 September 2024 in hardcover and as an open access e-book.
The English translation, Mother Unknown. Adoption of Children from India in the Swiss Cantons of Zurich and Thurgau, 1973–2002 , was published by Chronos in e-book format in February 2025.
Website
Summary by the research team
presented at the press conference on 27.9.2024
