Two Norwegian women were shocked to learn that their sex had been changed at birth, only to finally realize the debacle of an alleged government cover-up almost 60 years later.
The women, now both 59 years old, have teamed up with Karen Rafteses Dokken, one of the mothers who took custody of the errant infant, to fight the state over Switcheroo, the Associated Press reports. is suing.
Dokken gave birth to a baby girl on February 14, 1965 at a private facility in central Norway called Eggesboens Hospital, where the infants were kept together and the mother rested in a separate room. A week later, she returned home with a baby she named Mona, after her mother.
Dokken found it strange that her daughter had black curls, but thought that she had raised her daughter as her own to imitate her husband’s black-haired mother.
It wasn’t until the beginning of 2000 that she realized that Mona was not hers and that her biological daughter Linda Karin Risvik Gotters was being raised by someone else.
According to the Associated Press, she would have known sooner had Norwegian health authorities, who discovered the Tote for Tat incident in 1985 when the girls were teenagers, not covered it up.
“I never thought that Mona wasn’t my daughter,” Dokken, now 78, tearfully said while testifying at Oslo District Court on Tuesday.
The situation was particularly difficult for Mona, who found out that Dokken was not her biological mother until 2021 after undergoing a DNA test at the age of 57.
In the recent lawsuit, the women all claim that the Norwegian authorities have violated their rights and undermined their right to a family life, for which they owe the trio an apology and compensation. insisted.
Christine Erle Harness, a lawyer representing Mona, asserted that the state had “violated Mona’s right to her identity for many years,” adding: “The government has kept it secret.”
“Her biological father is deceased,” the litigator added. “She has no contact with her biological mother.”
Interestingly, the woman who raised Dokken’s biological daughter knew the truth as early as 1981, but neglected to pursue the birth lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Norwegian health authorities have hit back, saying the 1965 exchange took place in a private facility in the 1980s and that they had no authority to warn other families about the tragedy.
It is still unclear why the exchange occurred in the first place. However, reports suggest this was one of several infant switches that occurred at Eggesbornes in the 1950s and 60s.
