As the Epoch Times reported in March 2018, “Global adoption is a big business, fraught with loose regulations and profit incentives that have made it a target for kidnappers, human traffickers, and pedophiles.” Though some countries have banned all foreign adoptions, and most others attempt to regulate them, “the problem has continued,” Joshua Philipp reported.
In 2016, Uganda tightened its foreign adoption laws to restrict “fast-track foreign adoptions” which had previously allowed children with living parents to be “whisked overseas in a matter of days” under the guise of adoption, according to a Reuters report. In 2017, the Firstpost news outlet reported on a “kidnap-for-adoption” racket in India in which an adoption agency was found guilty of “stealing babies from impoverished unwed mothers, rape survivors and marginalised families.”
In the United States, the Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act has required since July 2014 that “all agencies or persons that provide adoption services on behalf of prospective adoptive parents […] be accredited or approved, or be a supervised or exempted provider, in compliance with the Intercountry Adoption Act and Department of State accreditation regulations.” However, as Philipp reported, abuse of adoptions, including trafficking and exploitation, “has continued even in the United States.” The United States remains among the top destinations for trafficking, according to UNICEF USA. According to that report, “Trafficking is not just an issue that happens to people in other countries. The United States is a source and transit country and is also considered one of the top destination points for victims of child trafficking and exploitation.”
As Geoffrey Rogers, CEO of the US Institute Against Human Trafficking, told the Epoch Times, “approximately 60 to 70 percent of kids that are trafficked in the United States come out of the foster care system.” Often this occurs through a process known as “re-homing,” in which people who have adopted children “pass the children to new parents with almost no regulation,” Philipp wrote. In these situations, children are more likely to suffer abuse or exploitation. With domestic adoptions, processes and procedures protect the rights of birth mothers, future adoptive parents, and the children themselves. However, as a 2015 study found, “these safeguards are often absent when parents adopt children from overseas.”
The establishment press has done virtually nothing to bring global corruption of adoption processes to light, especially in the United States. Extensive searches of three prominent news databases using multiple search terms located no corporate news coverage of any of the connections between international adoptions and child exploitation reported by the Epoch Times.
Joshua Philipp, “Child Trafficking through International Adoption Continues Despite Regulations,” Epoch Times, March 15, 2018,
https://www.theepochtimes.com/child-trafficking-through-international-adoption-continues-despite-regulations_2464370.html.
Student Researcher: Erika Banuelos (Indian River State College)
Faculty Evaluator: Elliot D. Cohen (Indian River State College)
The post 18 Adoption Agencies a Gateway for Child Exploitation appeared first on Project Censored.
Source