Clip Library
“China Denies International Baby Trafficking Reports,” Associated Press, September 29, 2011. An excerpt: “Officials in south China’s Hunan province have dismissed claims that more than a dozen babies were seized from parents who violated the country’s one-child policy and sold to orphanages who arranged to have them adopted overseas. A four-month investigation into the allegations, first reported in May by the Beijing-based Caixin Century magazine, found no evidence of baby trafficking in Hunan’s Shaoyang city, said an official from the Hunan press office in the provincial capital of Changsha who would give only his surname, Zuo. However, investigators did uncover...
E.J. Graff’s blog over at the American Prospect talks about Dr. Jane Aronson and adoption today: “Here’s what matters most: Aronson told the adoption lobby that adoption is notthe solution for the world’s needy children. She asks: Why did we create such a marvelous bureaucracy to improve international adoption practices and not pour some of that money into the welfare of mothers in these countries?Substitute “families” for “mothers”—some of those children are living with grandmothers, sisters, or cousins—and that’s the right question. Although UNICEF is often quoted as saying that there are 163 million orphans today, few people understand that the vast...
A fairly long and in-depth article by Emil Danilelyan for the Armenian press agency Azatutyun was published on September 20, 2011, entitled “Government Plans Fresh Changes in Armenian Child Adoption Rules.” The piece discusses new regulations related to international adoptions from Armenia, apparently aimed at cutting out intermediaries and “adoption brokers.” The top two grafs of the piece: “The Armenian government is planning to make fresh and potentially far-reaching changes in its rules and procedures for international adoptions of children from Armenia following an RFE/RL report suggesting that they may still be riddled with corruption. Relevant proposals drawn up by...
“It has emerged that following discussions between the Irish and Vietnamese authorities, Vietnam is preparing to ratify the Hague Convention on inter-country Adoption.” Here’s the full link: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/vietnam-ready-to-sign-up-to-adoption-convention-521111.html#ixzz1YnRg2ddo...
John Leland wrote an article in the September 16, 2011 edition of the New York Times called “For Adoptive Parents, Questions Without Answers.” “IN almost any adoption, the new parents accept that their good fortune arises out of the hardship of the child’s first parents. The equation is usually tempered by the thought that the birth parents either are no longer alive or chose to give the child a better life than they could provide. On Aug. 5, this newspaper published a front-page article from China that contained chilling news for many adoptive parents: government officials in Hunan Province, in southern China, had seized...
The Lakeland, Florida Ledger published an article on September 13, 2011 about the Florida Department of Children and Families: “For the second time in six years, a federal investigation has found the Florida Department of Children and Families violated labor laws by causing its employees to work overtime that went unrecorded and unpaid. The U.S. Labor Department charges that between 2008 and 2010, the state agency asked child services investigators in its Miami and Northeast Florida regional offices to perform tasks they couldn’t complete within an eight-hour work day, according to documents obtained by The Ledger through public records requests.”...
A new article, “Adoption case raises fears over trafficking,” by Geesche Jacobsen was published today in Australia’s Sidney Morning Herald. An excerpt: “A four-year old girl who had been informally given to a Sydney couple under a traditional Samoan adoption arrangement should return to her parents in Samoa, the Family Court has ruled. The girl known as ”S” had been promised to a childless great aunt and her husband before birth, but had lived with her parents and seven siblings in Samoa until she was nearly two years old….” Read the full article here: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/adoption-case-raises-fears-over-trafficking-20110829-1jiei.html...
The August 27, 2011 edition of The Joplin Globe has a story called “Woman Facing Charge in Adoption Fraud Case” by Jeff Lehr. Apparently, a Missouri woman and her fiance are accused of trying to sell their infant to two different couples, one in Arkansas and one in Maryland. An excerpt: “Joplin police have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of simultaneously running adoption-fraud schemes on two couples from out of state while posing as May 22 tornado victims….” Full link to the story: http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x1823382316/Woman-facing-charge-in-adoption-fraud-case...
New American Media has published a story that is partially based on interviews with Loyda Rodríguez, mother of the abducted child Anyelí, and her brother. It’s called “Amid Allegations of Human Trafficking, Guatemala to Review Adoptions.” I’ve excerpted at length, because there’s new reporting here that hasn’t been mentioned elsewhere: “All it took was a moment. Loyda Rodriguez recalls carrying her groceries into her Guatemala City apartment before turning around to find her two-year-old daughter Anyeli gone from the patio. “I said, ‘Where is she?’ I was very confused – why did they take my nena?” said Rodriguez of that...
“Guatemalan mother says daughter kidnapped, adopted in U.S.“ By Rafael Romo, CNN Senior Latin American Affairs Editor It’s a case that has become emblematic of the risks involved in international adoption. The case involves a now-6-year-old girl, two countries (the United States and Guatemala), and two families who, in addition to the girl, have been deeply affected by what a Guatemala woman describes as her daughter’s kidnapping five years ago…. Video: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/08/15/romo.guatemala.custody.dispute.cnn?iref=allsearch Transcript: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1108/15/cnr.07.html Print article: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/08/15/guatemala.kidnapping.adoption/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29 ...
ABCnews.com has a feature story up called ”Mom and Daughter Reunite 34 Years After Adoption Scam,” by Susan Donaldson James with additional reporting by Jessica Hopper, that tells the story of Sarah Hudson, who was sold as an infant in 1977. “Sarah Hudson, who was “sold” as a newborn in a New York baby ring that scammed adoptive mothers in the 1970s and 1980s, was reunited with her biological mother for the first time since her birth.” Full link to story: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/seymour-fenichel-baby-mother-reunited-34-years-adoption/story?id=14314781...
The New York Post published an article today about the Theresa Erickson surrogacy scandal, “How Socialite Brought Down Black-Market Baby Brokers: Mom gets justice after parent-trapping ring dupes her into ‘buying’ child for $180,000.” An excerpt from the top of the piece: A beautiful city socialite bought a black-market baby for $180,000 — then helped the FBI bring down the kiddie-peddling ring that sold him to her. Former Manhattan society girl Taylor Stein — who also has a love child with cosmetics billionaire William Lauder — wept at times as she recounted to The Post yesterday how she unwittingly became embroiled in the...
The LA Times has a piece here, “Salvadoran Group Dogged In Search for Children Missing Years Ago In Civil War,” by Ken Ellingwood. In it, Ellingwood writes the following: “Investigators hunt leads in dog-eared adoption files and photos from orphanages that operated during the conflict. They tramp onetime conflict zones to trace last known steps and prod residents to recall traumatic, long-ago events. They venture into the most remote corners of the countryside, despite the presence of drug traffickers and dangerous gangs.” The article’s subheading mentions that the investigators also use “modern tools such as Facebook.” It reminded me of the three...
“Cuenta regresiva para anular documentos falsos” (“Countdown for the Annulment of Falsified Documents) by Magdalena Medina, published in ElPeriódico, August 12, 2011. “Con una resolución histórica, el Juzgado Tercero de Instancia Civil anuló el proceso de adopción de la niña Angelí Rodríguez y ordenó su repatriación. En un plazo menor de dos meses la niña debería estar en Guatemala junto con su madre, Loida Rodríguez, estima la Fundación Sobrevivientes. Se cree que se encuentra en San Louis, Missouri. Claudia Hernández, subdirectora de la Fundación, querellante adhesivo en el caso, explicó que en el plazo de cinco días hábiles el Registro...
The award-winning documentary “Wombs for Rent” was produced by my former Stabile classmate Hilke Schellmann, along with another Columbia alum, Habiba Nosheen. As with Finding Fernanda, the Stabile Center provided initial funding for the project. It aired on the new documentary show Now on PBS. Here’s a synopsis written by Sheila Coronal, director of the Stabile Center, for the Stabile blog: The report shows how surrogacy is an unregulated industry in the U.S. and therefore open to abuse. They focused on a company that has defrauded hopeful parents and victimized mothers trying to help them. Working with NOW senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa,...
A 3-part series by E.J. Graff, Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, published today on Slate.com: “For 12 years, Judi Mosley had been raising a boy she was sure she’d saved from a civil war. During those same 12 years, his birth family, together with the birth families of other children adopted from Makeni, a town in Sierra Leone’s north, say they were desperately trying to find out where their children had gone. The local child-welfare organization that arranged the adoptions argues otherwise, saying that the birth families knew all along that their children would be adopted—and are now...
