Child selling

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Child-selling is the practice of selling children, usually by parents, legal guardians, or subsequent custodians, including adoption agencies, orphanages and Mother and Baby Homes. Where the subsequent relationship with the child is essentially non-exploitative, it is usually the case that purpose of child-selling was to permit adoption.

Contents

International law

The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption is a treaty which bans the buying and selling of children and attempts to impose controls and regulation on inter-country adoption, which gives rise to the practice. [1]

Afghanistan

According to UNO HR deputy director coordinator the country is very poor so many people are selling their children and unborn children, daughters are being sold into marriage and or for forced child labor for $850-2000 US dollar. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

China

Parents selling their children during the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876-79, drawn 1878 Famine Victims Selling Their Children from The Famine in China, Illustrations by a Native Artist (1878).jpg
Parents selling their children during the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–79, drawn 1878

According to Frank Dikötter, in 1953 or 1954, when there was starvation, "across the country people sold their children" [8] and a 1950 report by the Chinese Communist Party on Shanghai "deplored ... the sale of children due to joblessness" [9] and, Dikötter continued, sale of children by "many" of the unemployed also occurred in south China, [9] near Changchun "some families sold their children", [10] in 1953 during a famine in some provinces "desperate parents even bartered their children", [11] and one price in 1950–1953 in Nanhe County was "a handful of grain", [12] another price in 1953 or 1954 having been 50 yuan, enough for the father (the seller) to buy rice to last through a famine. [13]

According to a 2006 report, low-income families and unwed mothers sell babies, often girls, in the underground market in China, and the sales are to parents who want servants, more children, or future brides for sons. [14] "Relatively few Chinese brokers are caught and prosecuted." [15]

According to a 2007 English newspaper report, [16] in China, 190 children were snatched every day, but the Chinese government did not acknowledge the extent or cause of the problem.

According to a 2013 English-language Chinese newspaper report, [17] Chen Shiqu, director of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security's human trafficking task force, said that since a DNA database started in April 2009 it has matched 2,348 children with their biological parents. Zhang Baoyan, founder of the non-government organisation Baby Back Home, said the database is the most effective way to reunite families. Baby Back Home receives an average of 50 inquiries a day from abducted children and their parents; Baby Back Home gives blood samples to the ministry for DNA testing. However Zhang Baoyan, founder of Baby Back Home, said that "there are still some parents of missing children who have no idea about the DNA database".

A 2013 English news magazine report [18] describes Xiao Chaohua, a campaigning parent of an abducted child, as believing that the authorities could be doing a lot more. Xiao says that buyers of abducted children still often get away without punishment—they usually live in villages and sometimes enjoy protection from local officials. He says orphanages sometimes fail to take DNA from children they receive.

Ireland

Legal adoption was introduced to Ireland by the passage of the Adoption Act in 1952, which took effect from 1 January 1953. Both prior to and after the enactment of this law, children were regularly trafficked for the purposes of adoption, usually to the United States, by religious orders who ran adoption agencies and Mother and Baby Homes. Journalist and author Mike Milotte estimates that as many as 4,000 such illegal adoptions took place, from the 1940s to the 1970s. [19] [20] [21]

Malaysia

In 2005 in Malaysia, baby-selling rings were believed by some to be "thriving", although this activity was still considered criminal. [22] A 2016 report by Al Jazeera exposed that baby selling was ongoing in Malaysia for a long time, with the babies brought in from countries like Thailand and Cambodia. Some babies will be bought by couples desperate to start a family, while other babies are sold to traffickers and forced to become sex slaves or beggars. [23] Prostitution rings also offer babies from their foreign sex workers who get pregnant with some of the sex workers even willing to contact any couples by themselves to offer their babies as Malaysian laws does not allow migrant workers to bear children in the country. [24]

United Kingdom

Lawrence Stone reported some attempted sales of children accompanying wives sold by husbands to new husbands, one in 1815 and another discussed in 1763. [25] (Wife sale in England was illegal but believed to be lawful and widely practiced in southern England and the Midlands.) [26]

Historian E. P. Thompson reported a sale of two children with a sale of a wife to an American in 1865 for £25 per child (the wife being sold for another £100). [27] In atypical cases, a wife and four children were sold for a shilling each, apparently to preclude an expulsion to be forced by poor law officials, [28] and a wife and child, born after she started living with her lover but before the sale, were sold. [29] In another case, a wife and baby about a year old were sold at an auction, [30] where the selling husband said, "[c]ome on wi' yer bids, and if yer gies me a good price fer the ooman, I'll gie yer the young kid inter the bargain.... I'll tell thee wot, Jack ... if thee't mak it up three gallons o' drink, her's thine, I'll ax thee naught fer the babby, an' the halter's worth a quart. Come, say shillins!" [31] In various cases, when wife sales split families, it appears that the youngest children went with mothers and older children went with fathers. [32]

Procedures for selling children were often like those for selling wives when they relied on the contractual method, even if the contract was not legally enforceable. [33]

United States

Georgia Tann, of Memphis, Tennessee, [34] was employed by the Tennessee Children's Home Society. [35] According to reporter Barbara Bisantz Raymond, Tann, in 1924–1950, [36] stole many children [37] and sold 5,000 children, [38] most or all of them white. [39] The children were adopted by families [40] in exchange for substantial fees [41] (ostensibly for transport [40] and hotel [42] but Tann charged multiple times for a single trip [42] and collected the money personally rather than through the Tennessee Children's Home Society) [40] and processed the adoptions without investigating adoptive parents [43] except for their wealth. [44] Amounts charged for adoptions ranged from $700 [45] to $10,000 [46] when "reputable agencies ... [charged] almost nothing". [46] Tann, in a 1944 speech accusing others of unlicensed adoption placements, did not admit selling children herself. [47]

According to Raymond, Tann made adoption socially acceptable. [48] Previously, when the first U.S. state adoption law was passed in 1851, adoption was "not immediately popular". [49] Early in the 20th century, adoption was "rare". [50] Low-income birth parents from whom children were taken were generally considered genetically inferior, and the children, considered adoptable, were considered therefore genetically tainted. [51] Before Tann's work, indenture was applied to some children with the duties to educate the children and to provide them with land scarcely enforced, [52] and the Orphan Train Project gathered children and transported them for resettlement under farmers needing labor, using a procedure akin to a slave auction. [53] Some children's custody was changed "through secretive means" [54] between sets of parents, some willing and some unaware. [55] Baby farms, where many children were murdered, [56] sold children for up to $100 each. [57] Tann, apparently disagreeing with the prevailing view, [58] argued (against her own belief) [58] that children were "blank slates", [59] thus free of the sin and genetic defects attributable to their parents, [58] thus making adoption appealing, [48] and providing a way for children who might otherwise have been dead [60] to survive and receive care. Her waiting lists included much of the U.S., Canada, and South America. [60] One person adopted through the Tennessee Children's Home Society was wrestler Ric Flair. [61]

Brokers who sold babies were found in Augusta, Georgia, and Wichita, Kansas. [62] A sale by a midwife occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, [63] a child was sold twice on one train ride, [63] and one "father ... traded his unborn daughter for a poker debt." [62]

In 1955–1956, attempts to pass U.S. Federal legislation to ban baby-selling failed. [64]

Cambodian children to the U.S.

In 1997–2001, Lauryn Galindo "made $8 million by arranging eight hundred adoptions of Cambodian children by unwitting Americans", one being Angelina Jolie. [65] For Galindo, baby buyers, often taxi drivers and orphanage managers, offered low-income mothers (chosen by baby recruiters) money or rice for children, whom Galindo claimed were orphans and for whom adopting families paid around $11,000 in fees. [66] Galindo, saying she intended "to save children from desperate circumstances" and that she felt she acted "with the highest integrity", was convicted in the U.S. and sentenced to a year and a half in prison. [66]

South Korea

Under South Korea's military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, white parents in Europe, Australia and the United States adopted 200,000 majority female South Korean children, which is the biggest adoptee diaspora in the world. The European countries included Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark. This was a major human rights violation by the military dictatorship as most of the Korean girls were not real orphans and had living biological parents but were given false papers to show that they were orphans and exported to white parents for money. The Korea Welfare Services, Eastern Social Welfare Society, Korea Social Service and Holt Children’s Services were the adoption agencies involved in the trafficking of the girls. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission began investigating the scandal in 2022. [67] The military leaders were linked to the agencies board menbers and they wanted to establish closer links with the west and decrease South Korea's population. [68] South Korea's Korean Broadcasting System reported on the case of the Korean girl Kim Yu-ri who was taken away from her biological Korean parents and adopted to a French couple where she was raped and molested by the French adopted father. [69] Across Australia, Europe and the United States, the majority female Korean adoptees asked for an investigation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into the child trafficking scandal. [70] The Brothers Home was one of the adoption centers that engaged in the trafficking in South Korea and the adoption agencies and South Korean government destroyed tons of documents to hide their activities and gave false identities to the children while selling them. The Brothers Home Facility sold the adoptees to Australia, Europe and North America and they also raped and used the children as slaves themselves. AP investigated adoptions from 1979-1986 at the Brothers Home and interviewed a woman, J. Hwang who was sold to be adopted in North America by the Brothers Home after she was left there by police in 1982 at age 4. Every child earned the Brothers 10 dollars per month paid by the Korea Christian Crusade adoption agency which later became Eastern Social Welfare Society. [71] Denmark was one of the recipients of the Korean adoptees sold by Korea Social Service and Holt Children's Services. [72] [73] Holt Children’s Service was sued by a Korean adoptee in the US for compensation. [74] [75]

Other cultures and worldwide

In Greece, "babies of ... young women are sometimes sold to adoptive parents before their mothers even leave the hospital." [76] In 2007, brokering was being investigated by Interpol in Greece. [77]

Worldwide, in recent years, according to reporter Barbara Bisantz Raymond, brokers steal and sell children. [78] In France, Italy, and Portugal, in 2007, brokering was being investigated by Interpol. [77]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Joan Crawford, a subject of Mommie Dearest

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoption</span> Parenting a child in place of the original parents

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.

The international adoption of South Korean children was at first started as a result of a large number of orphaned mixed children from the Korean War after 1953, but later included orphaned Korean children. Religious organizations in the United States, Australia, and many Western European nations slowly developed into the apparatus that sustained international adoption as a socially integrated system. This system, however, is essentially gone as of 2020. The number of children given for adoption is lower than in comparable OECD countries of a similar size, the majority of adoptees are adopted by South Korean families, and the number of international adoptees is at a historical low.

International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple residing in one country becomes the legal and permanent parent(s) of a child who is a national of another country. In general, prospective adoptive parents must meet the legal adoption requirements of their country of residence and those of the country whose nationality the child holds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trafficking of children</span> Form of human trafficking

Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, and/or receipt" kidnapping of a child for the purpose of slavery, forced labour, and exploitation. This definition is substantially wider than the same document's definition of "trafficking in persons". Children may also be trafficked for adoption.

In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent–child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.

Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other's personal information and have an option of contact. While open adoption is a relatively new phenomenon in the west, it has been a traditional practice in many Asian societies, especially in South Asia, for many centuries. In Hindu society, for example, it is relatively common for a childless couple to adopt the second or later son of the husband's brother when the childless couple has limited hope of producing their own child.

Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia Tann</span> American child trafficker (1891–1950)

Beulah George "Georgia" Tann, was an American social worker and child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the unlicensed home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s. Young children were kidnapped and then sold to wealthy families, abused, or—in some instances—murdered. A state investigation into numerous instances of adoption fraud led to the closure of the institution in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public.

Tennessee Children's Home Society was a chain of orphanages that operated in the state of Tennessee during the first half of the twentieth century. It is most often associated with Georgia Tann, its Memphis branch operator and child trafficker who was involved in the kidnapping of children and their illegal adoptions.

Child laundering is a tactic used in illegal or fraudulent international adoptions. It may involve child trafficking and child acquisition through payment, deceit or force. The children may then be held in sham orphanages while formal adoption processes are used to send them to adoptive parents in another country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Korea)</span> Governmental inquiry into 20th century atrocities

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established on December 1, 2005, is a South Korean governmental body responsible for investigating incidents in Korean history which occurred from Japan's rule of Korea in 1910 through the end of authoritarian rule in South Korea with the election of President Kim Young-sam in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hague Adoption Convention</span> International convention

The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption is an international convention dealing with international adoption, child laundering, and child trafficking in an effort to protect those involved from the corruption, abuses, and exploitation which sometimes accompanies international adoption. The convention has been considered crucial because it provides a formal international and intergovernmental recognition of intercountry adoption to ensure that adoptions under the convention will generally be recognized and given effect in other party countries.

Koreans in the Netherlands form one of the smaller Korean diaspora groups in Europe. As of 2022, 9,469 people of Korean origin lived in the Netherlands.

Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child harvesting</span>

Child harvesting or baby harvesting refers to the systematic sale of human children, typically for adoption by families in the developed world, but sometimes for other purposes, including trafficking. The term covers a wide variety of situations and degrees of economic, social, and physical coercion. Child harvesting programs or the locations at which they take place are sometimes referred to as baby factories or baby farms.

Adoption fraud, also known as illegal adoption, can be defined as when a person or institute attempts to either illegally adopt a child or illegally give up a child for adoption. Common ways in which this can be done include dishonesty and bribes.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to adoption:

The Brothers' Home was an internment camp located in Busan, South Korea during the 1970s and '80s. During its operation, it held 20 factories and thousands of people who were rounded up off of the street, the homeless some of whom were children, in addition to college students who were protesting the regime. Only 10% of internees were actually homeless. The camp was home to some of the worst human rights abuses in South Korea during the period, which were exposed in AP and CNN articles in 2016.

It is not uncommon for Korean adoptees to be deported from the United States. Due to the institutional and parental failure to grant and apply for adopted children's citizenship, South Koreans adopted by American families prior to 1983 were left vulnerable to deportations, and many suffered from a lack of access to other resources American citizens have.

References

  1. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 251
  2. ↑ "Afghanistan: 'I drug my hungry children to help them sleep'". BBC News. 2022-11-24. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  3. ↑ "Afghan families sell daughters into marriage as economy collapses". NBC News. 2021-11-21. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  4. ↑ Saber, Shapoor. "This Afghan Man Sold His 5-Month-Old Daughter To Survive: 'Did I Have A Choice? You Tell Me.' And He's Not Alone". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  5. ↑ "Starving Afghan kids sold, forced into labor amid dire economic and humanitarian crises". PBS NewsHour. 2022-01-21. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  6. ↑ Shah, Saeed; Houdt, Joël van (2021-10-16). "As Afghanistan Sinks Into Destitution, Some Sell Children to Survive". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  7. ↑ "Afghan dad trying to sell daughter to keep family from starving". 2021-09-09. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  8. ↑ Dikötter (2013) , p. 223 and see pp. 119–120 & nn. 42–43 (accusation of sale of children) & p. 252 & n. 21 (giving away of children due to poverty)
  9. 1 2 Dikötter (2013) , p. 60
  10. ↑ Dikötter (2013) , p. 1473
  11. ↑ Dikötter (2013) , p. 212
  12. ↑ Dikötter (2013) , p. 213
  13. ↑ Dikötter (2013) , p. 223
  14. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. 246–247, citing China Daily
  15. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 247
  16. ↑ Clare Dwyer Hogg (23 September 2007). "Has anyone seen our child?". The Observer . Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  17. ↑ Zhang Yan. "Database gives hope to abducted children". China Daily . Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  18. ↑ "A cruel trade". The Economist . 24 January 2013. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  19. ↑ Milotte, Mike (2012). Banished Babies. New Island Books.
  20. ↑ Ó Fátharta, Conall (3 June 2015). "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Fears over 'trafficking' of children to the US". Irish Examiner . Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  21. ↑ Ó Fátharta, Conall (3 June 2015). "SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Government already knew of baby deaths". Irish Examiner . Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  22. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 249, citing ABC Radio Australia
  23. ↑ "Malaysia: Babies for Sale". Al Jazeera News. 24 November 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  24. ↑ Lydia Aziz (26 November 2016). "This horrifying video exposes ugly truth of baby-selling in Malaysia". Vulcan Post. AsiaOne. Archived from the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  25. ↑ Stone (2002) , p. 146
  26. ↑ Stone (2002) , pp. 143–146
  27. ↑ Thompson (1993) , p. 415
  28. ↑ Thompson (1993) , p. 440
  29. ↑ Thompson (1993) , p. 441
  30. ↑ Thompson (1993) , pp. 463–465 (appx.)
  31. ↑ Thompson (1993) , p. 466 (appx.)
  32. ↑ Thompson (1993) , p. 446
  33. ↑ Menefee (1981) , p. 165
  34. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 1 ("Memphis... where Georgia [Tann] lived")
  35. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 6 (according to Governor Gordon Browning, Tann was "employed by the Tennessee Children's Home Society") and see p. 1 ("[h]er orphanage or Home, the local branch of the Tennessee Children's Home Society").
  36. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. viii and see p. 7.
  37. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. 121–122 and see p. 210.
  38. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 79 and see pp. viii (see n. for p. x on point), 2, 13, 45, 115, 116, 160, 163, 209, 210, 212, 214, & 215.
  39. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 84 and see pp. 75 & 78.
  40. 1 2 3 Raymond (2007) , pp. 117–118
  41. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. ix, 118
  42. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , pp. 118–119
  43. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. 80, 118, 210
  44. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. ix and see pp. 78 & 118.
  45. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 231
  46. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. 118
  47. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 92
  48. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. ix
  49. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 71 and see pp. 65–70, 75, & 77–78.
  50. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 71
  51. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. ix, 71–72
  52. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 68
  53. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. 72–74 (for an earlier auction, see p. 67).
  54. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 76
  55. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. 75–77
  56. ↑ Raymond (2007) , pp. 69–70 and see p. 77.
  57. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 79 and see p. 77.
  58. 1 2 3 Raymond (2007) , p. 78
  59. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 78 (quoting the author and not Tann, but the author said Tann "said [it] repeatedly") and see pp. 82–84.
  60. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. 79
  61. ↑ Flair (2004) , pp. 3–6, 278, & 332
  62. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. 213
  63. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. 214
  64. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 212 and see p. 252.
  65. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 245
  66. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. 246
  67. ↑ Kim, Tong-hyung (December 8, 2022). "South Korea's truth commission to probe foreign adoptions". AP. Seoul, South Korea.
  68. ↑ "More South Korean adoptees who were sent overseas demand probes into their cases". NPR. December 9, 2022.
  69. ↑ "양부의 범죄와 양모의 방관...친부모 동의도 없이 프랑스로 입양돼야 했던 김유리 씨의 삶 시사직격 KBS 방송". KBS 추적60분. Nov 21, 2022.
  70. ↑ Kim, Tong-hyung (December 9, 2022). "More South Korean adoptees demand probes into their cases". AP. Seoul, South Korea.
  71. ↑ Kim, Tong-hyung; Klug, Foster (November 9, 2019). "AP Exclusive: Abusive S. Korean facility exported children". AP. Busan, South Korea.
  72. ↑ Kim, Tong-hyung (August 23, 2022). "Danish adoptees call for S. Korea to probe adoption issues". AP. Seoul, South Korea.
  73. ↑ Kim, Tong-hyung (June 11, 2021). "Korean adoptee films pain of mother-child separations". AP. Seoul, South Korea.
  74. ↑ "South Korean court orders agency to compensate Asian American adoptee". Associated Press. May 16, 2023.
  75. ↑ Kim, Tong-hyung (January 24, 2019). "AP Exclusive: Adoptee deported by US sues S. Korea, agency". AP. Seoul, South Korea.
  76. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 250
  77. 1 2 Raymond (2007) , p. 249
  78. ↑ Raymond (2007) , p. 116
  79. 1 2 Flair (2004) , p. 3

Bibliography

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