Illegal Adoption in Lebanon: Mechanisms & Consequences

Adoptionland NewsAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Excerpts, Rights

Lebanon’s history of illegal adoption is a long one, as old as its wars. Illegal adoption is, of course, a worldwide phenomenon. Missionary work targeting “orphans” and children “of unknown parentage” began as a result of global wars, famines and epidemics that have plagued humankind throughout history. It should also be noted that the issue of orphans and abandoned children …

Philomena author on scandal of Ireland’s 60,000 babies ‘sold’ by nuns to rich American families

Adoptionland NewsAdoption, Adoption Survivor, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Excerpts, Long Lost Family, Rights

The film Philomena, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, tells the true story of a mother’s quest to find the son taken from her by the Catholic Church in 1950s Ireland. She was one of an estimated 60,000 women whose babies were given to new parents in exchange for cash donations. As part of a new BBC2 show, Martin Sixsmith, …

Uganda tightens foreign adoption rules to thwart child trafficking

Adoptionland NewsAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Excerpts, Rights

May 14, 2015.  REUTERS/JAMES AKENA KAMPALA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Child rights campaigners in Uganda have welcomed a new law that restricts fast-track foreign adoptions in which children – often with living parents – can be whisked overseas in a matter of days. Lawmakers passed a bill this week that requires foreigners seeking to adopt children to live in the …

Chinese Officials Seized and Sold Babies, Parents Say

Adoptionland NewsAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Excerpts, Rights

LONGHUI COUNTY, China — Many parents and grandparents in this mountainous region of terraced rice and sweet potato fields have long known to grab their babies and find the nearest hiding place whenever family planning officials show up. Too many infants, they say, have been snatched by officials, never to be seen again. But Yuan Xinquan was caught by surprise …

China’s Adoption Scandal Sends Chills Through Families in U.S.

Adoptionland NewsAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Excerpts, Rights

By JOHN LELAND IN almost any adoption, the new parents accept that their good fortune arises out of the hardship of the child’s first parents. The equation is usually tempered by the thought that the birth parents either are no longer alive or chose to give the child a better life than they could provide. On Aug. 5, this newspaper published a …