Adopted biological families require rectification: should be punished

Leonidas Muñoz in Chile always carried his lost little brother’s birth certificate in his pocket. Until he found him over 40 years later, in Nyköping. Without the parents’ knowledge and consent, the four -month -old baby was adopted to Sweden. Seven years ago, Fredrik Nyberg was reunited with his siblings. He got a new story about the first time in his life: Fredrik was not abandoned, he was stolen. The case is one of more than 600 Swedish cases of suspected illegal adoptions currently being investigated by Chilean police.

When the Adoption Commission recently stated that the adoption agency to Sweden has been associated with major risks, that there have been counterfeit documents and children’s trade, Leonidas Muñoz was not particularly surprised.

– It is shameful to know that Sweden, which was so developed at that time, exploited ignorance and poverty in a country so far away from them.

When DN met the siblings in Chile and Nyköping in 2021, Fredrik Nyberg wondered:

How to repair a life that has passed?

It’s difficult, says brother Leonidas Muñoz now.

– I still have contact with my siblings, but that connection that arises when you grow up together, it is missing. I think we will not be able to regain that proximity as siblings and family.

Sweden’s actions are unforgivable, he says.

– But I really don’t want to blame the adoptive parents. The children came to them under false premises.

Already in 2003 Revealed two Chilean journalist students that babies had been stolen from their Chilean parents and brought to Sweden with the help of the Adoption Center’s employees on site. Ulf Kristersson, who was then chairman of the association, has told him that he remembers the situation « very well ». The adoption center did an internal investigation that concluded that no errors had been committed.

Sweden should have done more when the first alarms that everything was not right came, says Leonidas Muñoz.

– Of course, the Swedish state should have taken drastic measures. It might have given us more years together.

The government’s special investigators, Anna Singer, believe that the adopted human rights have been violated, that the state should admit it, and apologize to the affected. The fact that relatives, who have been deprived of their children would have an apology, has not been presented in the debate.

Leonidas Muñoz would like the Swedish state to ask the family for forgiveness.

– But, the injury is already done, he says.

– I believe that everyone involved in the adoption agency should receive some kind of punishment. What they did was terrible.

Ilda Gonzale’s sisterMaria Nilsson, was two months old when she was taken from the temporary childcare in Chile. Her mother struggled with the economy, and had been promised that it was a temporary solution. Until the girl was gone. Maria Nilsson grew up in Växjö. In 2018 she got in touch with Ilda Gonzales.

– Not having had her is sad, because I feel we would have been very close, says Ilda Gonzales today.

– I wouldn’t have been so lonely, I would have had a familiar, a partner, a friend.

Ilda Gonzales has not followed the reporting and debate about the adoption agency to Sweden. She has nothing to say, either to the Swedish state or Ulf Kristersson.

– What has happened has happened.

In July, she travels to Sweden to reunite with her sister.

– Before, it was a very distant dream, now it will become a reality.

When DN met Eliana Zapata Ferreira in Temuco in 2021, she was looking for her sister, who was adopted to Sweden in the late 1970s. Then she had just sent a message to a woman who could be the little sister. They have not yet been contacted. Now there is a glimpse of hope, says Eliana Zapata Ferreira. Perhaps Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will deal with the illegal adoptions.

– I hope his government will give us all, the families of the adopted children, an opportunity to reunite.

Also read: The disclosure in five points – it lit the spark

The Investigator: The State should ban international adoptions

Also read: Adopted positive to recognition – hoping for compensation

Read more about DN’s review About crime in the traces of adoptions, which began in 2021: