Korean American adoptees furious at light sentence for toddler killer

Adoptionland.orgAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Asia, Excerpts, Rights

DAMASCUS, MD (WUSA9) — – Advocates for children adopted from South Korea are furious about the light sentence handed on Tuesday to a Marine Corps vet who killed his 3-year-old adopted son. Madoc Hyunsu O’Callaghan was buried here in an all but unmarked grave. Adult adoptees from South Korea want to know how it’s possible that the dad who admitted hurling the …

Toddler’s murder reopens old wounds for Korean adoptees

Adoptionland NewsAbout Us, Adoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Asia, Excerpts, Rights, The Americas

Shannon Heit, 33, trembled with rage as she recalled the moment two months ago when she heard that a Korean boy had been killed by his adoptive father in the U.S. Heit, a freelance translator in Seoul, is not related to the boy. But she said that, as a Korean-American adoptee herself, she felt a deep connection to him, and …

A Ring of Scammers Is Trolling Adoption Websites and Duping Desperate Couples

Adoptionland.orgAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Excerpts, The Americas

By Anna Merlan South Carolina’s Post and Courier has a bizarre and heartbreaking story today about adoption scammers, who are tricking desperate childless couples and then vanishing. The truly weird thing: some of them aren’t doing it for money, but instead, as the paper puts it, “for the sheer sport of breaking some stranger’s heart.” The Post and Courier’s feature …

The American babies sold for as little as $100 in black-market adoption trade

Adoptionland.orgAdoption Trafficking, Excerpts

By Philip Sherwell, New York Gertrude Pitkanen conducted illegal abortions and sold unwanted babies in Montana from the 1920s for three decades. Now “Gertie’s Babies” are using new DNA-sharing websites to try to find relatives. They call themselves Gertie’s Babies, but they are all ageing adults now, connected only by the furtive manner in which their lives began as part …

Fraud and Heartbreak Can Plague Adoptions From Africa

Adoptionland.orgAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Excerpts, Rights

Government officials say sometimes parents are told their children will get an education abroad, but the youths are being adopted through shady agencies. KAMPALA, Uganda—When impoverished mother Nakiwala Hasifa signed legal guardianship papers to let a Christian pair from Mississippi have custody of her five-year-old son, Stuart Bukenya, in 2009, she thought she would hear from him regularly and that …