Child auction (, ) was a historical practice in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

during the 19th and early 20th centuries, in which orphan and poor children were boarded out in

auction An auction is usually a process of Trade, buying and selling Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services by offering them up for Bidding, bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from th ...

s. The name ''auction'', however, does not refer to actual slave auctions, as the children in these auctions were never actually bought in a legal sense, but the name has become the common name for the practice. The children were handed over to the person asking least money from the authorities to provide for the child. The compensation was determined in descending English auctions, where the children were present. The lowest bidder became the child's foster parent and was compensated with an annual amount equal to the bid. The foster parents provided the child with housing, upbringing and education, but the children were often used for

child labour Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...

. Especially in the Finnish countryside, children sold at auction usually lived in very poor conditions and were mistreated. Child auctions were prohibited in Sweden in 1918 and in Finland in 1923. However, auctions were still organized in Finland until the late 1930s. The last known child auction was held in 1935. Some of the children were still living with their foster parents in the 1940s. Among the notable people who were sold in child auctions are the Swedish politician Fredrik Vilhelm Thorsson, who later became the Minister for Finance of Sweden, Swedish school founder Hanna Lindmark, Finnish politicians Eino Kujanpää, Jukka Lankila and Vasili Suosaari, and Finnish author Joel Lehtonen. Similar practices were also carried out in other European countries, like the '' Verdingkinder'' institution in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

References

Social history of Sweden Social history of Finland Forced labour Child labour Governmental auctions Human commodity auctions {{Finland-hist-stub

See also

References