Children missing from hospitals after quake, sparking trafficking fears

[demoleft]

Source: afp

AFP - Children have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti since the devastating earthquake struck, raising fears of trafficking for adoption abroad, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Friday.

"We have documented let's say around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family at the time," said UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand.

"UNICEF has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti which existed already beforehand, and unfortunately many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption 'market'," Legrand explained.
...
Trafficking networks were springing into action immediately after the disaster and taking advantage of the weakness of local authorities and relief coordination "to kidnap children and get them out of the country," Legrand told journalists.

Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20100122-children-missing-hospitals-earthquake-trafficking-haiti-unicef

---

terrible.

[midnight]

1. I saw some Americans picking them up at our American airpots, and wondering

how many of them have been taken from their parents... this is very concerning...

[Dappleganger]

14. Those children were already in the adoption system

prior to the earthquake, with papers filed in both countries. Are you implying that those American parents were actually stealing children? They merely sped their paperwork along a bit more quickly (they did this with the children going to the Netherlands as well). At least get your facts straight before you falsely accuse someone of wrongdoing!

[ananda]

2. Slavery anyone?

I've come to think that the BIG SIN/CRIME of the
modern and postmodern eras is slavery.

[Frustratedlady]

3. Sex slavery.

I heard comments a couple days ago about fears that the sex slavery market would try to recruit young girls and boys by enticing them to come to the US for their safety.

Talk about a double whammy.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jefferson23]

4. What a nightmare, this is just more heartbreak for Haiti!

[Odin2005]

5. Jesus...

:(

[Blue_Tires]

7. ugh...i wish i didn't just read that...

[VanW]

8. This is the reality behind the fantasy being repeated in the media

of heroic white couples in middle America scooping up grateful black children.

They are called "orphans", even though "orphanage" workers will admit that many do have parents and relatives, just ones too poor to care for them.

Most of the kids getting flown out on private jets don't have finished paperwork, or even paperwork at all. That's why politicians and millionaires are pulling strings and making personal appearances to make those pesky "laws" go away. Their potential adoptive parents and other "benefactors" are paying big bucks to make things happen.

[Raschel]

10. But how are these planes now getting in and out so easily?

[VanW]

12. It's not so easy, that's what I'm saying

Look at how Ed Rendell described his trip:

"RENDELL: Well, then, we dispatch -- I'm at the airport dealing with the officials. I dispatch some of our group to the embassy to try to persuade the two -- the two sisters to allow at least the 47 to go out.

We're making some progress there, but we're not there. And, then, finally, the -- we get word from the national security adviser, the National Security Council, that, in fact, all 54 kids are approved to go. That's the good news.

The bad news I, the Army, as they had to, the Air Force and the Army, who were running the airport, had to move our plane, because you have got to keep rotating tarmac space, so that all the planes trying to get in could get in.

So, the kids arrived at the airport, and we had no plane anymore. We had gotten a plane chartered by Republic Airlines that had been paid for by an anonymous benefactor, but the plane had to go.

SANCHEZ: I with you.

RENDELL: So, the Army, and this great major by the name of Miller -- I don't know his first name -- he said: "Don't worry, Governor. I have got a solution."

He says -- "What's the solution?"

He said: "See that C-17, just unloaded a crane? It's going back to Charleston. We will take you to Orlando."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1001/19/rlst.02.html



Politicians pulling strings, anonymous "benefactors", military cargo planes. Even Ed Rendell's wife flew down to get involved.


Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups are getting their planes rejected 4, 5, 6 times.

[Coventina]

11. I'm not saying that what you say never happens, but that is

really an unfair characterization of people who want to adopt!

I am having difficulty in having a child of my own, and my husband and I have been talking about adopting from Africa. We are thinking of it, not because we think we are "heroes", but because there are children who need loving families!

If a family, here or abroad, gives up a child for adoption, does that mean the people who adopt that child are somehow "child stealers"?

Let me be clear, I IN NO WAY condone trafficking in children, every adoption should be perfectly transparent every step of the way. But your post sounds like you disapprove of the motives of people wanting to adopt from overseas.

[VanW]

13. No one can tell your intentions but you.

Certainly not me.

But the media, and the adoption industry as a whole, focuses on the needs and the emotions of the adopters. What they want, what they feel, what they say, their personal perspective, is what takes precedence. The childrens' needs to see people related to them, to speak and understand their own language, to be completely legally accounted for and protected, to not be traumatized by separation from everything they know-- these things are dismissed.

[Coventina]

17. So I take it you are totally opposed to any sort of cross-cultural adoption?

?

I can tell you that the people I know personally who have adopted from other countries (Russia and China) did not do so because they were selfish basket cases that wanted a child at any cost, which is what your posts imply. And in both cases the child is thriving and doesn't seen to miss their life in the orphanage in their home country. Exactly the opposite, actually.

[VanW]

18. If there is money changing hands, yes.

The transfer of a human being, especially a child, should not be a business transaction.

And removing a child from their homeland at a time of great stress and upheaval is wrong as well, and every major children's rights organization recognizes this.


And again, I am not psychic and cannot tell what is going on in adopters minds. What I can tell is what comes out of adoptees mouths when they are old enough to be independent and say what they really think and feel, and they talk about pain and confusion and trauma that lasts their entire lives.

[Coventina]

20. I'd love to see links to studies that show adoption traumatizes

people for their entire lives.

Seriously, if this is true, I will give up the idea of adopting.

[VanW]

23. Here's a discussion of several studies and cases:

http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/41323

This is not a great link but I don't have everything at my fingertips at the moment.

[Coventina]

28. I had no idea that adoption was such an evil thing to do.

Thanks for keeping me from becoming a monster.

[SemperEadem]

26. especially if that child has parents who are alive

it think it's the height of hubris to believe that only white couples are fit to be parents and therefore, should be handed children from underdeveloped countries on demand and damn what everyone else thinks.

[marshall]

29. I wonder if the number of unhappy adoptees is equal in ratio to unhappy non-adoptees?

I've seen the website poundpuplegacy--it is meant to draw together folks who have beefs about their childhoods. But there are countless stories about folks raised by their biological parents who bemoan their childhoods. Isn't it one of the foundations of Freudian psychology?

[rebecca_herman]

30. and being in an orphanage is so much better

for the children who have truly been orphaned/permanently abandoned?
My neighbors adopted a child from overseas. Both his birth parents and his grandparents decided they didn't want him and left him at an orphanage. He was severely behind socially and developmentally when they adopted him. He is now a thriving, healthy 5 year old. I find it extremely hard to believe that he would have been better off living his entire childhood at that orphanage where he had been well-fed but neglected in just about every other way.

[angel823]

16. I agree with Coventina

I really don't want to sound condescending, but most folks have no idea what they are talking about in regard to international adoption. All of the people I know (including a family with a child from Haiti) adopt out of love, and because they don't care what race a child might be or where the child was born. Yes, this is partly a selfish act.

I am willing to admit that I don't know all the particular circumstances surrounding children being airlifted from Haiti, but I do know that there are extraordinary circumstances there right now:

<http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/21/haiti.orphanages.attacks/index.html>

So what would you guys do to protect the children living in orphanages in Haiti right now? Some of these children have adoptive families in other countries (not just the US) who have been in process for months waiting for them to come home - Many have visited and formed a bond with their child. Does leaving them there sound like a good way to help?

A disclaimer: I have adopted internationally.

Angel

[VanW]

19. What should be done is what every major children's org is saying:

(including UNICEF): help the children where they are. Get them food, water, shelter, help where they are. Where they can speak and understand their language and stabilize. Where their potential adoptive parents can then visit them and understand who they are.

[angel823]

22. it's obvious

that you really don't have any information about international adoption and the procedures, rules and regulations that are in place to govern same. When you or someone in your family has adopted internationally, come back and give me your opinion. Until then, you are just repeating talking points.

I won't look back on this thread again, so don't bother to respond.

[Dappleganger]

15. FACTS

where are your factual sources that American parents are doing this? You made the accusation so please back it up.

[VanW]

21. "Everything is about crossing people's palms with money to get stuff."

""In Haiti, it's always been if you know somebody," Gambrell said. "Everything is about crossing people's palms with money to get stuff. That's how the guards at the airport remember who I am. I tip big." ...
Gambrell's connections in Haiti helped Wilson come back with his adopted daughter. Wilson and his wife visited the girl, Tia, seven days before the quake and were waiting for the Haitian government to finalize the adoption.
...
But even after showing U.S. officials adoption paperwork and photos of the children, they were not authorized to leave.

"I got fired up," Wilson said. "I said, 'I'm not leaving until I leave with them.' We were in the process of getting Tia a passport, but all that is down in the rubble. I knew if I left it would be months, maybe years, before we would get her."

Finally the U.S. authorities relented. With Gambrell's help, Wilson secured two seats on a private plane that took him and the two children to Fort Lauderdale, where they caught another plane to Nashville and touched down around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday."
...
"Our mission really is evangelism," said Steven Boo, who was on the flight with Gambrell to Haiti. "We do not want Haiti to be a better place to go to hell from."


http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100120/NEWS01/1200372/2067



Money, crossing palms, big connections, evangelism...all to get the authorities to "relent".

[captain jack]

9. The sinful pleasure of rich white guys. I believe this is part of the CEO benefits package. n/t

[Rebubula]

25. Yup...

...only white guys that sexually abuse kids...


:eyes:

[captain jack]

27. Was it not obvious that I was referring to the sex trade and the wealthy white men that exploit it?

If you wish to discuss the broad subject of sexual abuse and typical perps I can't help you. This is why I referred to a particular subject, the sex trade, which is what the article was about as well. Wealthy western white men exploit this trade around the world, hence my comment. Though other shades may exploit it, my issue is with rich white men that exploit it, which is my choice. I think I've explained myself enough. As for your rolling eyes, well, I'm sure I don't have to tell you what you can do with those.

[callous taoboy]

24. Sick bastards that would do this. Beyond the pale.