Danish adoptions at a record low

In the last nine years, the number of Danes looking to adopt a child has plummeted by over 80 percent, Jyllands-Posten reported. 

 

Only 238 Danes applied for adoption permits last year and in 2014 that number is projected to be just 165. By comparison, 1,183 Danes applied to adopt in 2005. 

 

Adoption bureaus pointed to the rising costs of adoption and a series of media stories that cast overseas adoption in a negative light as the primary reason for the dramatic fall.

 

In the past year, adoptions were suspended from both Nigeria and Ethiopia over concerns that women in those countries were illegally selling their children for adoption.

 

Those negative stories have contributed to the decline in interested parents, Pia Brandsnes of the adoption bureau AC Børnehjælp said.

 

“In the past year in particular there has been a discussion and rhetoric within the Danish press attacking international adoption,” she told Jyllands-Posten. “There is absolutely nothing wrong in adoption bureaus being criticised when something is wrong, but the way in which international adoption has been discussed has run completely off the rails.”

 

In addition to the negative media attention, adoption advocates also pointed to long waiting times and dramatic increases in the cost of adoptions as reasons for the decrease. At the adoption bureau DanAdopt, it now costs around 220,000 kroner to adopt a child from Ethiopia.