In 1965, a Norwegian woman, Karen Rafteseth Dokken, gave birth to a baby girl in a private hospital. Seven days later, she returned home with a baby. When the child developed dark curls that made her look different from herself, Rafteseth Dokken assumed the baby took after her husband’s mother.
It took nearly six decades to uncover the truth: Rafteseth Dokken’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, Mona, was not the baby she had given birth to. The babies — one born on February 14 and the other on February 15, 1965 — are now 59-year-old women. Together with Rafteseth Dokken, they are suing the state and the municipality.
Their case, which opened in the Oslo District Court on Monday, alleges that their human rights were violated when authorities discovered the error during their teenage years and covered it up. They argue that Norwegian authorities had undermined their right to family life, a principle enshrined in the European human rights convention. They are seeking an apology and compensation.
Rafteseth Dokken, now 78, was tearful as she described learning so many years later that she had been given the wrong baby, as reported by Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It was never my thought that Mona was not my daughter,” she said in court on Tuesday. “She was named Mona after my mother.”
Mona relayed a lifelong sense of never belonging. This uncertainty led her in 2021 to take a DNA test, which revealed she was not the biological daughter of those who had raised her. However, the woman who raised the other baby had known long before.
A routine blood test in 1981 revealed that the girl she was raising, Linda Karin Risvik Gotaas, was not biologically related. Despite the revelation, the woman did not pursue a maternity case. Norwegian health authorities were informed of the mix-up in 1985 but chose not to inform the other families involved.
Both women who were switched at birth have said in interviews that learning about the mix-up was a shock, but it made certain aspects of their lives fall into place, helping explain differences in both appearance and demeanor.
Kristine Aarre Haanes, representing Mona, stated that the state “violated her right to her own identity for all these years. They kept it secret.” Mona could have learned the truth when she was a young adult, but instead, she did not discover it until she was 57. “Her biological father has died. She has no contact with her biological mother,” added Aarre Haanes.
The circumstances surrounding the 1965 swap at Eggesboenes hospital remain unclear. Media reports by NRK suggest there were multiple incidents during the 1950s and 1960s where children were accidentally swapped at the same institution. At the time, babies were kept together while their mothers recuperated in separate rooms. In other cases, the errors were identified before the children were permanently placed with the wrong families.
An official from the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services stated that the state was unaware of similar cases and that there were no plans for a public inquiry.
Asgeir Nygaard, representing the Norwegian state, is contesting the case, arguing that the 1965 switch occurred in a private institution and that the health directorate in the 1980s lacked the legal authority to inform the other families when they discovered the error. “Documentation from that time indicates that government officials found the assessments difficult, inter alia because it was legally unclear what they could do,” he wrote in a statement to The Associated Press before the trial’s opening. “Therefore, in court, we will argue that there is no basis for compensation and that the claims being made are in any case statute-barred.”
The trial is scheduled to run through Thursday, though it is unclear when a ruling will be made.
