Roelie Post, The Founder of Against Child Trafficking exclusive interview in The Traffickers.

A series of articles and TV documentaries have been made about Against Child Trafficking’s work, most notably the public German TV (WDR) documentary Search a Child, Pay Cash: The Adoption Lobby, which won a prestigious media prize in 2010 (Stiftung Kindernothilfe, Berlin). Also Dutch public TV (KRO) Brandpunt Children for Sale – Ethiopia in 2013. US Fusion’s THE TRAFFICKERS, 2016, now available on Netflix in the US and the UK. And, also in 2016, Manufactured Orphans  by Channel NewsAsia.

In episode 6, The Dark Side of Adoption, Nelufar begins her journey in America, which adopts more children from overseas than all other countries in the world put together. But ominous forces lurk beneath many of these joyful unions.

Watch the exclusive interview with Roelie Post, Civil Servant of the European Commission and the author of For Export Only: The Untold Story of Romanian ‘Orphans’, and the founder of Against Child Trafficking.

In the last fifty years, the adoption industry had developed that served the demand for children in the Western world. An industry in which huge sums of money are involved. Children are sold for money (disguised as adoption fees) mainly through licensed and accredited adoption agencies and regulated by adoption laws.

Search a Child, Pay Cash: The Adoption Lobby

60 Minutes: Children For Sale

The good news is that the intercountry adoption market has been reduced by some 75% over the last ten years.  Against Child Trafficking is proud to have played a significant role in this by exposing the deceit, injustice, and right-out trafficking.

The bad news is that the market for transnational commercial surrogacy is on the rise.  Not only are the rights of children being broken (identity, right to know one’s parents), also women are exploited at several levels (as egg donors, as surrogates).

ACT considers this demand-driven market in children to be child trafficking/sale of children.

“The demand for children to adopt keeps prices high and creates a lucrative marketplace where babies can be traded as commodities. This is a massive market consisting of child finders, baby snatchers, traffickers, criminal gangs, and fraudulent agencies.”  — Sumithra Prasanna

Against Child Trafficking is an international child rights organization registered in the Netherlands (Chamber of Commerce: 09183849).

Against Child Trafficking’s primary focus is the fight against the commodification of children, especially opposing:

–  the market in children for intercountry adoption

–  the market of transnational commercial surrogacy

Against Child Trafficking promotes the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which first and foremost gives children the right to be cared for by their parents.  It is the responsibility of the State to support families and communities in the upbringing of their children. Intercountry adoption may only be considered if there is no way at all to bring up a child in-country, and that includes foster care and residential care. All efforts should be made to keep families together.