International conference on adoption policy in the 20th century
Historical and global perspectives on adoption practices: International experts discussed political, social and cultural implications.
The three-day conference ‘Politics of Child Adoption in the 20th Century’ took place at Festung Mark from 8 to 10 January 2025. It was organised by Prof. Dr Bettina Hitzer, Head of the Department of History, Ethics and Theory of Medicine at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg in collaboration with Prof. Dr Thomas Lindenberger from the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research in Dresden.
The conference examined historical and current adoption practices worldwide and discussed differences between authoritarian and liberal states as well as the global interdependencies caused by foreign adoptions since the 1950s. The topics covered included adoptions of Ukrainian children during the Ukraine war, indigenous child abductions in Canada and Australia, politically motivated (illegal) adoption networks of Greek children in the USA during the Cold War and the influence of racist structures on adoptions in Sweden and in the country of origin, South Korea.
International researchers from Australia, the USA, Canada and Europe discussed their research and perspectives on global adoption history.
The conference was accompanied on 9 January 2025 by the exhibition ‘Niños robados. Stolen Children. Stolen Children’ was opened. This exhibition, organised by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, showed the long-term consequences of politically motivated adoptions and complemented the main topics of the conference.
The conference was financed by the German Research Foundation, by tax funds on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament and by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.
Photo: Nurses and Vietnamese refugee children on an Operation Babylift flight after its arrival at San Francisco International Airport in 1975. Photo source: World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo