Adoptee Testimonials of Suffering—Transnational Adoptees and the Issue of Suicidality in Swedish Media Texts, 1988–2025

For well over two decades, quantitative research has repeatedly found that suicide attempts and suicides are up to four times more common among transnational adoptees compared to the general population in Sweden. Even so, the Swedish healthcare sector and society at large have failed to address the vulnerable situation of the more than 60,000 foreign-born adoptees in the country. This qualitative study is the first of its kind and draws on accounts of being a foreign-born adoptee as they appear in Swedish media texts between 1988 and 2025. The study explores the themes that adoptees raise regarding their experiences of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. The texts are thematically analyzed within the framework of Miranda Fricker’s theory of epistemic injustice. The study focuses on two themes: mistreatment and abuse, and bullying and school problems, which, taken together, shed new light on and offer a nuanced understanding of the overrepresentation of suicide attempts and suicides among transnational adoptees.