Within the framework of a three-part project for the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang (VG), Espen Rasmussen put his focus on the subject of illegal adoptions. It was VG that uncovered the story of Ecuadorian children being adopted illegally into Norway – a fact the Norwegian authorities have known about since 1989. Equipped with a Q2, Rasmussen accompanied Simon Eriksen Valvik (in his mid thirties), on his search for his biological mother, and their first encounter in her homeland, in November 2022. Rasmussen spoke with us about his work process, and the story behind the project.

How do you choose your topics?
I work in different ways depending on the stories and projects. Very often I work on my own ideas, developing them through research and reaching out to people. Since I work for a newspaper, the projects I work on are often linked to challenges in Norway or the world – either political, environmental or social.

What is your focus when working?
For me it is always about the people I meet. I try to get to know them as much as possible, to be able to translate their situation and feelings into my pictures.

How did you come across and decide to immerse yourself into this story about illegal adoption in Norway?
The illegal adoption project was different. I teamed up with a group of investigative journalists from VG, and, while they worked on the text, did research and interviews, I photographed the story. The story was also something that I found interesting and quite shocking: 30 years ago, several children from Ecuador were adopted into Norway against the will of their parents. This was covered in the news back in the 1980s, but the scale was not known. The reporters managed to find several kids, they worked in the archives in Ecuador and managed to document how kids had been kidnapped and sent to Norway – and how the adoption company tried to silence it, in cooperation with Norwegian authorities.

How big of a problem is illegal adoption in Norway? Is it a significant issue in Norway?
I wouldn’t say it’s a big thing; but after the investigative team worked for several months on the project, interviewing several adopted children who now live in Norway and are adults today, they found evidence that this had happened to quite a few families/children in the 1980s and 1990s. The investigation also showed that there was one adoption company involved in this. The stories also discovered that lawyers and other criminals were working in countries like Ecuador, to find children for adoption in Norway – and the money involved was quite large. The investigative team from VG is still working on this project.

How did you find your protagonist, Simon? He was sold to a lawyer in Ecuador and then adopted in Norway, right?
He was one of the first people in this series. He had done a lot of investigating himself, after his Norwegian mother passed away some years ago. When we met him last year, he had a lot of documents and he was suspicious. The reporters from VG helped to investigate further, and found several things related to his story. I and the reporter met Simon at his place in Kristiansand in Southern Norway. After that meeting, we agreed to travel with him to Ecuador, where he would meet his family for the first time in a town called Otavalo, one hour by car from Quito.

What was your focus while working on this project?
Simon’s story became increasingly shocking the more the reporters worked on it. Not only was his biological mother – who was 15 years old when this happened – forced to sell Simon to a lawyer, but it was also discovered that later on she was in a trial in Ecuador, for her involvement in kidnapping another child for adoption. So when we followed Simon back to Ecuador to meet his mother, he had mixed feelings. But he – and we – knew that his mother was only 15 back then; there was a lot of pressure and criminals involved in these adoptions, and it seems like his mother was a victim of that.

When did you shoot the series? How often did you travel to Ecuador?
The first images I shot in Simon’s apartment in Kristiansand in October 2022; then we travelled with him to Ecuador for nine days in November 2022, where I also shot the final images of him. So I worked on this story for approximately two months. When we work on these kind of stories for VG, there is often a limited time frame, as the stories needs to be published.

What would you like the viewers to draw from this project, what was your intention?
The most important intention was to reveal the illegal parts of the adoption. To show that there were several kids who had been illegally adopted into Norway, and to be able to document this. We also wanted to push so that those responsible for this would see what their actions have caused. For Simon, it was very emotional: the fact that he had lost contact with his family, and that the way he was adopted was not done in a correct manner. Some of those adopted through this scheme have been going through hard times – both mentally and emotionally – because of the adoption, while others were able to handle it in a god way. I think Simon was one of those who handled it in a good and strong manner, even though it was hard to discover what had actually happened when he was adopted as a young child.

Born in 1976 and currently based close to Oslo, Norway, Espen Rasmussen studied Photojournalism at OsloMet University and works as a photo editor/online producer at The Hub in VG, Norway’s leading daily newspaper. Previously he was the photo editor for VG Helg — VG’s weekend magazine. At the same time he is constantly working on his own photo projects. Rasmussen focuses specially on humanitarian issues and challenges related to climate change. He is a member of the photo agency VII. His work has won him numerous awards, including the 2007 and 2018 World Press Photo, several Picture of the Year international (POYi), and most recently, the BarTur Photo Award in 2022. His work has appeared in magazines such as Paris Match, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Der Spiegel and the Economist, as well as newspapers such as The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph and The New York Times. Find out more about his photography on his website and Instagram page.

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