Repeatedly since the 1970s, the Swedish state and adoption organizations in the country were warned about numerous irregularities in the process of adopting children from abroad. Each time, these warnings were ignored. That changed in 2021, when a series of articles was published by the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter. Written by journalist Patrik Lundberg, who was born in South Korea in 1983 and discovered at age 24 that his biological parents had not given consent for his adoption, the articles exposed the systematic nature of these irregularities.

A commission of inquiry was then appointed. Led by law expert Anna Singer, a specialist in family law, the commission released its findings on Monday, June 2. The conclusions were unequivocal: The commission found cases of child trafficking "between 1970 and the 2000s," Singer revealed at a press conference in Stockholm. Some children were declared dead at birth or placed in care by third parties, and were adopted "without the free and informed consent of their parents."

The commission also uncovered "false information and inaccuracies in adoption documents" as well as "major and systematic gaps regarding the origins of the children." Because of these failings, "it was not always possible to confirm that an international adoption was in the best interests of the child," Singer explained. She also noted that state oversight was lacking: "Swedish actors did not act vigorously enough when irregularities were detected."

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