Megan Twohey, The Child Exchange. Reuters, 9 September 2013. People in the US “use the Internet to abandon children adopted from overseas.” Five-part series: The Network; The Dangers; The Middlemen; The Failures; The Survivors.
Excerpt from story:
Through Yahoo and Facebook groups, parents and others advertise unwanted children and then pass them to strangers with little or no government scrutiny, sometimes illegally, a Reuters investigation has found. It is a largely lawless marketplace. Often, the children are treated as chattel, and the needs of parents are put ahead of the welfare of the orphans they brought to America.
The practice is called “private re-homing,” a term typically used by owners seeking new homes for their pets…. No law explicitly covers the practice…of “private re-homing.” The primary safeguard that does exist is a feeble deterrent – an agreement between U.S. states called the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC)….
The Reuters investigation found that some children who were adopted and later re-homed have endured severe abuse. Speaking publicly about her experience for the first time, one girl adopted from China and later sent to a second home said she was made to dig her own grave….
“This is a group of children who are not being raised by biological parents, who have been relocated from a foreign country” and who sometimes don’t even speak English, says Michael Seto, an expert on the sexual abuse of children at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group in Canada. “You’re talking about a population that appears to be especially vulnerable to exploitation.”
Giving away a child in America can be surprisingly easy. Legal adoptions must be handled through the courts, and prospective parents must be vetted. But there are ways around such oversight. Children can be sent to new families quickly through a basic “power of attorney” document – a notarized statement declaring the child to be in the care of another adult….
As part of its investigation, Reuters reviewed thousands of pages of records – many of them confidential – from court cases, police reports and child welfare agencies. Reporters examined ads for children and emails between parents, and also identified eight Internet groups in which members discussed, facilitated or engaged in re-homing. Reporters then analyzed thousands of posts from the group that Yahoo subsequently shut down, Adopting-from-Disruption.