Adoption was once a social insitution to find homes for orphans. After World War II, increased access to birth control pills and legal abortion, and a lessening of the stigma of single parenting, coupled with an increase in infertility resulted in a demand for babies that outstrips the “supply.” And where there is demand – be it for diamonds, drugs, sex, or babies – corruption follows.
Adoption is racist. The scarcity of “white American-born babies” has led to an increase in international adoptions, fracturing family ties and heritage in what some are calling cultural genocide. Madonna was criticized. Angelina confounds. Westerners, however, continue to believe that adoption “rescues” orphans; though saving children from poverty, one at a time, does nothing to ameliorate the conditions that continue to produce them. And, many so-called orphans are in fact stolen, kidnapped, or their parents were coerced to relinquish them under false pretenses to be sold on the black and gray adoption markets with prices set by age, alleged health, skin color, gender and nationality.
As Americans import mostly light-skinned babies, non-white children are left behind, and the number of black, American-born babies adopted by overseas families has increased significantly in recent years, with black babies being placed with Canadian couples more than ever before. Adoption trends follow poverty and sociopolitical upheaval from Latin America to Asia and Eastern Europe. Since the 1990s, China and Russia have become the largest exporters of children for international adoption. Unrest and poverty in these nations makes them ripe for corruption and trafficking. In April 2007, the U.S. State Department confirmed that Guatemalan babies are kidnapped for adoption and other mothers pressured to sell their babies by corrupt, inadequately supervised notaries. The previous month, a Utah adoption agency was indicted for “systematically misleading birth parents in Samoa into signing away rights to their children while telling adoptive parents in the United States that the children had been abandoned and were orphans” (“Pacific Islands Report: Utah Agency Indicted In Samoa Adoption Scam,” March 5, 2007 http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2007/March/03-05-01.htm). All of this while UNICEF is investigating child trafficking and babies being sold for adoption in Nepal (Nepal: Unicef On Inter-Country Adoption
Author of "shedding light on...The Dark Side of Adoption" (1988) and "The Stork Market: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoptuion Industry" (2007) www.AdvocatePublciations.org
MIRAH (aka Marsha) RIBEN has been researching, writing and speaking about the need to reform, humanize, and de-commercialize American adoption practices for nearly three decades.
Member of the Board of Directors, Origins-USA.org.
If you doubt the validity of this article, please know that the United Nations is also aware. See below:
Distr. General 6 January 2003 COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Fifty-ninth session, Item 13 of the provisional agenda
RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
Report submitted by M. Juan Miguel Petit, Special Rapporteur, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornogrpahy in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/92.
IV. OTHER ISSUES IN FOCUS, A. Adoption
"During the course of 2002, the Special Rapporteur received many complaints relating to allegedly fraudulent adoption practices. Where such practices have the effect that the child becomes the object of a commercial transaction, the Special Rapporteur... such cases fall within the "sale" element of his mandate. The Special Rapporteur was shocked to learn of the plethora of human rights abuses which appear to permeate the adoption systems of many countries...in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year, seeking babies for adoption... The problems surrounding many intercountry adoptions in which children are taken from poor families in undeveloped countries and given to parents in developed countries, have become quite well known, but the Special Rapporteur was alarmed to hear of certain practices within developed countries, including the use of fraud and coercion to persuade single mothers to give up their children." (Emphasis added)
I hope before people jump to erroneous and vastly misinformed conclusions, they will first educate themselves and not buy into the adoption industry myths and propaganda that has caused many willing, but single mothers, to have their babies taken by the adoption MARKET which brings in over $1.4 BILLION a year in this country.
by
Karen Wilson Buterbaugh (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Wednesday, June 6, 2007 at 2:29:16 PM
If you doubt the validity of this article, please know that the United Nations is also aware. See below:
Distr. General 6 January 2003 COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Fifty-ninth session, Item 13 of the provisional agenda
RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
Report submitted by M. Juan Miguel Petit, Special Rapporteur, on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornogrpahy in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2002/92.
IV. OTHER ISSUES IN FOCUS, A. Adoption
"During the course of 2002, the Special Rapporteur received many complaints relating to allegedly fraudulent adoption practices. Where such practices have the effect that the child becomes the object of a commercial transaction, the Special Rapporteur... such cases fall within the "sale" element of his mandate. The Special Rapporteur was shocked to learn of the plethora of human rights abuses which appear to permeate the adoption systems of many countries...in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year, seeking babies for adoption... The problems surrounding many intercountry adoptions in which children are taken from poor families in undeveloped countries and given to parents in developed countries, have become quite well known, but the Special Rapporteur was alarmed to hear of certain practices within developed countries, including the use of fraud and coercion to persuade single mothers to give up their children." (Emphasis added)
I hope before people jump to erroneous and vastly misinformed conclusions, they will first educate themselves and not buy into the adoption industry myths and propaganda that has caused many single mothers to have their babies taken by the adoption MARKET which brings in over $1.4 BILLION a year in this country.
by
Karen Wilson Buterbaugh (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Wednesday, June 6, 2007 at 2:31:14 PM
3 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
