This article is about selling mainly for non-exploitative adoption. For selling for exploitation, see trafficking of children. For sale as part of ongoing slavery, see child slavery.
For the illegal acquisition of children by purchase or otherwise, see child laundering.
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.
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 dollars.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
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]
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]
Other cultures and worldwide
In Greece, "babies of ... young women are sometimes sold to adoptive parents before their mothers even leave the hospital."[67] In 2007, brokering was being investigated by Interpol in Greece.[68]
Worldwide, in recent years, according to reporter Barbara Bisantz Raymond, brokers steal and sell children.[69] In France, Italy, and Portugal, in 2007, brokering was being investigated by Interpol.[68]
In Pete's Dragon, a Disney movie released in 1977, Pete, the title character, was found to have been sold to the Gogans, an uneducated family who used him as cheap labor until he ran away.
In Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble sold Oliver to an undertaker.
To Be the Man, the autobiography of Ric Flair, begins with the opening chapter "Black Market Baby"; Flair's parents obtained him from the Tennessee Children's Home Society.
Broker (2022 film) a South Korean film about two brokers and the mother of an abandoned baby that follows the brokers on their journey to sell the baby.
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.
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an illegal way, with the intent of never resuming or reasserting guardianship. The phrase is typically used to describe the physical abandonment of a child. Still, it can also include severe cases of neglect and emotional abandonment, such as when parents fail to provide financial and emotional support for children over an extended period. An abandoned child is referred to as a foundling. Baby dumping refers to parents leaving a child younger than 12 months in a public or private place with the intent of terminating their care for the child. It is also known as rehoming when adoptive parents use illegal means, such as the internet, to find new homes for their children. In the case where child abandonment is anonymous within the first 12 months, it may be referred to as secret child abandonment.
An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusive. There may be substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home, or the parent may simply be unwilling to care for the child. The legal responsibility for the support of abandoned children differs from country to country, and within countries. Government-run orphanages have been phased out in most developed countries during the latter half of the 20th century but continue to operate in many other regions internationally. It is now generally accepted that orphanages are detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children, and government support goes instead towards supporting the family unit.
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.
Trafficking of children is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, 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. Not all adoption is a form of human trafficking, but illegal or informal is. Illegal adoptions violate multiple child rights norms and principles, including the best interests of the child, the principle of subsidiarity and the prohibition of improper financial gain.
Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was an American social worker and child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an unlicensed adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s to 1950. Young children were kidnapped and then sold to wealthy families, abused, or—in some instances—murdered. A state investigation into numerous cases of adoption fraud led to the institution's closure in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public.
To Be the Man is an autobiographical book written by professional wrestler Ric Flair and Keith Elliot Greenberg, and edited by Mark Madden. It was published by WWE Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster in July 2004. The book's title was taken from Flair's famous catchphrase: "To be the man, you gotta beat the man!".
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.
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.
Tennessee Children's Home is a residential care facility for children and former orphanage in Spring Hill, Tennessee, United States affiliated with the churches of Christ.
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.
The Children's Home of Pittsburgh, established in 1893, is an independent non-profit organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The organization's mission is "to promote the health and well-being of infants and children through services which establish and strengthen the family," including adoption, day care and pediatric health care.
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.
Camille Kelley was an American juvenile court judge and author. She was investigated by the state of Tennessee for using her judgeship to aid Georgia Tann's ongoing adoption fraud operation conducted under the auspices of the Tennessee Children's Home Society and resigned shortly after this information became public.
Wife selling is the practice of a husband selling his wife and may include the sale of a female by a party outside a marriage. Wife selling has had numerous purposes throughout the practice's history; and the term "wife sale" is not defined in all sources relating to the topic.
Kidnapping in China has its history since the ancient times. Such issues have been heavily studied and discussed by investigators and researchers.
The murder of Rachael Runyan is an unsolved child murder which occurred in Sunset, Utah, on August 26, 1982, when a three-year-old girl was abducted from a playground and murdered by an unknown individual. Her body was found three weeks later in a creek bed in nearby Morgan County.
↑ 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").
Raymond, Barbara Bisantz (2007). The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption. New York, NY: Union Square Press. ISBN978-1-4027-5863-8.
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