In 1965, a Norwegian woman named Karen Dokken gave birth to a baby girl in a private hospital. Seven days later, she returned home with the baby, but it wasn’t long before the infant’s dark curls made her look different from Karen. At the time, Karen just assumed the baby took after her husband’s mother. It took nearly six decades to discover the true reason: Karen’s biological daughter had been mistakenly switched at birth in the maternity ward of the hospital in central Norway. The girl she ended up raising as Mona was not the baby she gave birth to. The babies — one born February 14 and the other on February 15 — are now 59 years old, and together they are suing the Norwegian government. They argue that their human rights were violated when authorities discovered the error when the girls were teenagers and covered it up. They claim Norwegian authorities had undermined their right to a family life and demand an apology and compensation. Karen, now 78, said she never considered that Mona was not her biological daughter. Mona, on the other hand, said she had a sense of never belonging as she grew up. That sense of uncertainty pushed her in 2021 to do a DNA test, which revealed that she was not Karen’s biological daughter. Norwegian health authorities were made aware of the mix-up in 1985 but chose not to tell those involved. Circumstances surrounding the 1965 swap are unclear, but media reports suggest there were several cases during the 1950s and 1960s where children were accidentally swapped at the same institution. At the time, babies were kept together while their mothers rested in separate rooms. Representatives of the Norwegian government say the switch took place in a private institution and that the government didn’t have the authority to inform the families when they discovered the error. The trial is ongoing and it’s not clear when a ruling is expected.
