Answers Found in Ethiopia

The end of one woman's story learning the truth of the lives of the children she adopted from Ethiopia. This was written while her 17-year-old daughter was in country trying to learn whether the children were free to be adopted:

"I have struggled with the possibility of sending our children back for several reasons. One being safety...two, their future and ...three, living conditions. Two of them, I feel I will have peace about if they go back because we will help their families support them and give them a good education...safety, I know that we will have peace about this before we would even send them back. But the living conditions has been more of a struggle because they have tasted our American life of comfort and convenience. 

"The past couple of weeks, our 8-year-old biological son has been reading about what life was like for Jesus when he lived on this earth. About the culture he lived in, food he ate, etc. It has been so fascinating to me to realize how similar people in Africa (and other areas of the world too) still live in a culture almost identical to the one Jesus lived over 2,000 years ago. When I woke up this morning, I felt like God told me that "If it was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for anybody to live in that culture." And the fact that, it doesn't seem to matter to this little girl we adopted what her culture is around her, she just wants to be with her mother and father, I don't blame her I would too.

'God is revealing so many things to me right now and for some reason, I feel led to share with you and not many others. So, I hope you don't mind my ramblings."

And then this is what she learned:

"My daughter was able to meet with the families of the child while in Ethiopia. The story I heard about the little girl--the one I was most concerned about--was true and what we were told when we began the process of adopting her. Her parents died when she was very young, and she was living with her aunt and uncle--and she has only known them--so she assumed they were her mother and father. They do not call their parents 'mom' and 'dad' in Ethiopia; they always call everybody by their first names. Consequently, Amber assumed that they were her 'parents' after being here, and figuring out our culture.

"When my daughter gave the aunt pictures of Amber, she kissed them and was very happy. She understood fully that Amber was being adopted and is happy for her to have this opportunity. From other things I have learned, it seems that when extended family take in a child after loss of parents, the child is not always fully accepted by the relatives. An example, there is a girl in the sponsorship program who is 12, and her aunt sold her for marriage; the program bought her back and she is going to live the with the lady who cooks for the program now. I am just so excited that we now have this contact and everything (that we know of) has been handled with truth and that Amber can stay connected with her birth family and hopefully travel back at some point to visit them. Who knows what God has planned for her, she may go back and do many good things for her country and people. This has helped Amber so much, she seems much happier now although she still has some grieving to deal with.

"The little boy's family is a different story. His parents died also, but his grandmother was trying to care for him. and she told our duaghter that she felt like this adoption was his only hope. After they put him up for adoption, he had an older brother that died. He also has an older sister that our daughter met who did not look very healthy. We are hoping to pull her into this sponsorship organization so she will get three meals a day, medical care, clothes, schooling, etc. The grandmother was so thankful to see pictures of the boy, and hear how well he is doing, and she also told us she fully understood that he was being adopted and might not ever see him again. It breaks my heart because I know it has been so hard for her. She is very old, so I don't know if he will see her in person again.

"Our daughter is hoping to go back every year (she has left half of her heart there) and who knows, maybe I will go at some point too. I would love to see them again, which is crazy because after I got back from getting the children, I didn't think I would ever want to go back.

"I didn't realize the seriousness of adoption until I stepped into it. About how much the child would need, especially to know truth and to be connected with birth family if at all possible. It is not always possible. But if the opportunity is there, it is definitely worth seeking it out. I was apprehensive at the beginning, but I now feel that I have extended family in Ethiopia and I truly care for them. We will be staying in contact and helping them as much as we can.

"When we picked up the children, I thought I would have this joyful feeling, but instead I felt grief for the families who felt they had to give up their children because they couldn't care for them.  I guess having biological children, I could relate with a mother's heart.  Reuniting with the birth families and knowing that we can stay connected with them has not only given the families and the children peace, but has brought me a great peace as well.  It definitely has helped us all to move on and help the children to deal with the loss they have experienced.  Even though they have a good life here and are loved, they miss their birth families and country and I do hope and pray that through the organization my daughter went over with (Elpis International) they will be able to travel back and visit at some point.  I knew God had us meet the founders of this organization when we picked up the children for a reason, didn't know it would be to stay connected with their families, but I am so thankful for this opportunity.

"We have an adoption in the works in China (been five years now) and I know that this will be another hard issue. Knowing that the birth mother felt forced to give up her child because of the government, breaks my heart and I pray that God will give me wisdom in helping this little girl through all of this.  We could possibly get her the end of this year (haven't had a referral yet, but could be soon).  I think that walking through the Ethiopia adoption with the older children and how they have been affected has opened my eyes to much more to the children's needs.  

"Even though we may never be able to locate this child's birth mother because children are abandoned, I realize that she will need to have a connection to her birth country.  When we first set out to adopt from China, I honestly didn't think it would matter, we would just raise her here and she would be happy, didn't matter if we taught her about China's culture or anything, but all of this has changed.  I am much more sensitive to what she might need and the connections she might need to have with China.  I am praying that if she needs to connect with her birth mother, that God will allow it to happen.  We already have some connections in China through Steven Curtis Chapman (Christian singer), so this might be helpful in the future."

My hope is that this woman's story will be read by other people adopting from around the world, and they will learn from it. We know some adoptive parents even have a problem filling out a census form when asked if their children are adopted, so far are they willing to travel in their minds to deny their children's true heritage and parentage. We know other adoptive parents who have traveled as far as Siberia to get children who will never be able to find their original birth families and true heritage. Those are the adoptions that make us angry, and sad.

Adoption should not be about the need to "complete a family" or "build a family" for a couple in a Western country, but about filling a need for a hungry and homeless child. We have come to know that many adoptive parents read here, and some of them get upset with what they learn from our experience with adoption--the other side of the coin, the one largely swept away when people wish to adopt--but there are others who teach us that it is not black and white, that adoption can be filled with shades of gray, and from then we have learned to be sympathetic to their desire to provide homes, and love, to children who truly need them. International adoption is so fraught with complexities and problems, and corruption, that we find it hard to see the upside of the mass migration of children from one culture to another; but it has happened and will continue.

We can not close that door anymore; we can only become a voice crying out to stop the abuses. I admit I was taken aback when I learned she was trying to adopt from China, but I am not going to question her motives. Yes, I wish adoptions were not necessary; but sometimes they are, and have always been, and this woman and her family shows compassion and understanding for the children they have brought into their homes, for their children's first families they were born into, for all of humankind--lorraine

One Woman's Struggle with Adopting from Ethiopia

Continued from yesterday, Adoptive Mom Here Searches for Birth Mother in Ethiopia and written by a woman who desires to know if the children she adopted from Ethiopia were truly free to be adopted, and without parents. She prefers to remain anonymous:

Once we know the desires of the birth mother and father, we can move forward either way. I feel in my heart that she (the girl they adopted, who is between six and nine) should be with her birth family. Being in America is not the answer to a better life or happiness. Sure she is having fun...it's like she is in Disneyworld, but she doesn't have her family, so she is not really happy. Even though we live with modern conveniences, she misses her life the way it was there, she was happy with it because what makes a home is "where your family is". This is what I told my biological eight-year-old son to help him understand.
"These people are being deceived and their ignorance, culture and poverty are being taken advantage of. The Lord has showed me more and more that the best life for her is to be with her birth parents. I will soon find out.

At the same time we adopted the little girl, we also adopted a little boy who is four. He is not related to the girl. His situation is a bit different, but my daughter will also be checking with his grandmother to find out what she was told. When we met her, we gave her a framed picture of him and she took it and kissed it and hugged it. I don't know what she thought at the time, if she thought he would come back???? If he is to go back too, this will be even more difficult because he has bonded with our family more so than the girl.

If his story is the truth, his birth parents died and his grandmother was trying to raise him, and he was not in good shape physically due to malnutrition. Once we brought him home and put him on a healthy diet, he grew 7 inches and gained 12 lbs in less than a year. I do feel I have to give her the opportunity also of being reunited with him, just in case she was deceived so that she can have peace and understand that if he stays here, she might not ever see him again. We would like to have the luxury of flying back and forth, but it is a difficult and expensive journey to Ethiopia that our family cannot handle right now. We really didn't have the money to adopt and it set us back financially. Our daughter raised money for her mission trip, she is in the air right now on her way there.

I would like to help others if we go through this process, I just don't know what it involves right now. I have heard of a family from Australia who returned their child and they even go back to visit the child in Ethiopia, but this is a story I have heard second-hand, and don't know who they are. It scares me to think of what might happen, I am sure we will be attacked personally, but I don't really care. I just hope it doesn't turn into a big legal battle and cause our family more stress.

If this had happened to me as a mother, I would hope that somebody would show me mercy and grace and return my child. This is assuming that the birth family of this little girl has regret. If not, then we will have peace that we have to move on and help her deal with this emotionally.

To be continued. Tomorrow we will post the conclusion of what her daughter found, and how the family is dealing with it.

Then I found this story on another blog: Human Traffic 2: Ethiopia's Baby Trade written by an adoptee herself who spent ten months in Ethiopia. It is dated from 2007, but considering what we have learned about international adoption from poor countries, it is largely still relevant. The writer, Kate Jongbloed, then a student at the University of Toronto, begins:

The going rate for a baby in Ethiopia is $10,000 USD, through legal channels. I’m not sure what a black market baby will run you. It’s sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around a baby with a price tag....

Here in Addis Ababa, a new flock of mostly American adopters takes over the Hilton and Sheraton hotels every 6 months, staying a week before exporting their new children back to the West...Perhaps I sound overly harsh, and as an adoptee myself, I can’t be completely critical of the adoption industry....But it’s important to think about the overall impact of massive adoption from developing countries from a wider perspective.

Take, for example, Ethiopia. One of the five poorest nations in the world, Ethiopia faces brain drain of its wealthy and educated, creating hubs of diaspora in places like Washington, D.C. or Edmonton, and undermining the country’s potential for growth. I see mass adoptions to the West in a similar light. By exporting a chunk of the future generation of Ethiopians, we are only addressing the symptoms of the problem and perhaps mining the youth that will carry Ethiopia out of poverty. I also question why the children have to be taken away to the West, when it is entirely possible to successfully sponsor a child (and its community) without taking it away from its society and culture.

Then there's this: Media: Ethiopia revokes licences of nine charitable organizations from the Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform, dated only a few weeks ago:

Ethiopia revoked the license of nine orphanages (charity organizations) who they claim to be involved in ‘illegal’ activities of child rights abuse, APA learns here on Wednesday.

The nine charity organizations have been working to adopt children for the past few years to Europe and America. However, the office, which is in charge of registering charity organizations at the Ethiopian Ministry of Justice refused to give details as to what kind of illegal activities the organizations were involved with regards to child rights abuse. Child trafficking is high in Ethiopia where a good number of children are reported to be adopted illegally annually.The decision to revoke the license of the nine organizations was made while the government was undertaking re-registration of charity organizations and other NGOs that are operating in Ethiopia.

 As long as there are people who are desperate to adopt, in today's culture of adoptamania, there will be corruption, there will be child trafficking, there will be abuse. I frankly do not know how to stop it. But reading one woman's journey to find out the truth of the children she adopted--and open her mind to the possibility of returning them--gives us all hope. There must be more like her. There must be.--lorraine

More Stench Coming from Ethiopian Adoptions through Christian World Adoptions

New evidence that the unethical harvesting of children in Ethiopia by American adoption agencies continues comes from the public broadcasting system of Australia, ABC. The Joint Council of International Children's Services (JCICS), the agency designed to oversee the activities of American adoption agencies, is comprised of--guess what? adoption agencies themselves, and so while the JCICS has supposedly completed in inquiry into the Ethiopian adoption practices, they are refusing to release the results.

Last year, we learned about a dysfunctional, largely unregulated adoption industry operating in Ethiopia, where children were being harvested from families, some of them middle class. The families and the children were told they were going to America on a study trip and would be able to return home, but in fact, they can not return until they are eighteen, and then they must find the means to do so on their own, often after living with families here who adopt them. ABC's program, Foreign Correspondent, found that Ethiopian mothers were being tricked into surrendering their children, and that children were being pitched to adoptive families as being as young as seven--when, in fact, they were teenagers.

Some children arrived in the United States believing they were only visiting.

Ethiopia has not signed the Hague Convention on inter-country adoptions, but many American adoption agencies, including the infamous Christian World Adoptions (CWA) are allowed to continue doing business with corrupt officials in that country, and claim they have no blood on their hands. When one adoptive mother, Lisa Boe, spoke out about the long list of serious, life-threatening problems of the child she adopted--whom she was told was healthy--CWA sued her. This was after she lost a first child to SIDS, and is devastated that the child she is raising might not live long. 

Another family who adopted three sisters encountered huge emotional problems with the oldest--the girl was thirteen, not nine, as the mother, Kate Bradshaw, was told. When she and her husband, Calvin, complained to a consumer watchdog, CWA's response was to claim the Bradshaws were unfit parents and tried to have both their adoptive and biological children taken away from them permanently. Kate Bradshaw said the problem was ultimately cleared up, and they did not lose their children. The oldest daughter, Journee, ultimately went to live with Kate's mother in Iowa Falls, and attends high school. Here is what Journee Bradshaw told ABC:

"I’m trying to make other people’s lives better, because mine was horrible. I don’t want anybody to go through the things I did. What happened just happened, you know? You can’t really change the past but you can change the future for yourself and others – that’s what counts."

American adoption-reform advocate Maureen Flately claims that JCICS is stacked with adoption agency figures and does a terrible job of regulating itself: "We've really let the fox guard the henhouse,"she said. Quoting from the ABC story:

"They are the 'big tobacco' of adoption. They are a trade association that nominally espouses the highest standards but which is harboring the very people who have been involved in some of the biggest abuses in adoption - and they haven't laid a hand on them. The JCICS has one goal and one goal only, and that is to avoid federal regulation of adoption.

"Here is one of the biggest pieces of hypocrisy in adoption. If they're Hague-accredited, why are they doing business with a country that isn't a Hague signer? The answer is that they know they have much more freedom to do whatever they want to do and to bully people in countries that aren't Hague signatories."

ABC has a 27-minute video on the child trafficking accounts from Ethiopia with interviews with three American families that have spoken out against the agency that arranged their adoptions, Christian World Adoptions, and anyone interested in international adoption--from any country but especially Ethiopia--should watch. It is an eye-opening, chilling look at what can only be called child harvesting that is being touted as saving the children from starvation and prostitution.

The slick, double-talking "christian" attorney for CWA, Curtis Bostic, will make you ill. And it's all being done in the name of Christianity. Please take the time to see the video, at this link: Fly Away Home. And another shorter, but incisive, report comes from a CBS affiliate in Richmond, CNET-TV:


Watch so that the next time you hear that someone is thinking of adopting from Africa, you will be informed. Maybe you can save one mother from losing her child, and save one child from being harvested for families here who pay big money to fill their homes. I may be particularly sensitive to this issue because I live in a world where that nice young cousin of someone I know tells me at dinner that she is thinking of adopting: from Africa. What does CWA say about adoption from Ethiopia at their website? 

Our Ethiopia adoption program is one of CWA’s largest and most affordable adoption programs.

The cost, according to the CBS report is about $15,000. Harvesting children is good for business. --lorraine
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This link will take you to CWA's response to ABC where they basically deny, deny; and ABC's response. where they reaffirm their reporting. Telling is that the head of CWA, Tommy-Lee Harding.  has repeatedly refused efforts to be interviewed. CWA is based in Charleston, South Carolina. 

One Woman's Decision NOT to Adopt from Ethiopia

A while back we posted a blog from Charissa who was planning to adopt three children from Ethiopia, but instead of rushing ahead, she did some digging and discovered that the agency handling the adoption (Celebrate Children International in Oviedo, FL) was more interested in supplying children to families willing to pay their fees than making sure of ethical practices in international adoption. We have written about corruption in international adoption several times (those links go to two posts, more to be found if using one of the search functions on our blog), and will continue to do so.

When last we heard from Chrarissa on December 1, 2009, and she was appalled upon learning that the children actually had mothers in Ethiopia. Charissa writes about deciding not to adopt the three children she and her husband were considering here, and tells the rest of the story in at Urbanfunnyfarm:

I wish I could have ended this story with "the children were returned to their families" but sadly that is not the case. We are absolutely heartbroken knowing these children are still orphans. We could have continued with the adoption, and I don't think we would have been wrong to do that. However, knowing what we knew, how could we look into their eyes years down the road and tell them the story of how they came to be in our family without feeling like we took part in their pain and rejection? The one thing that gives us peace and comfort in this is that the orphanage saw a problem too, and now the children are listed with a REPUTABLE agency who is carefully investigating each of the CCI cases.
She ends the post with some very good questions to ask fro all those considering international adoption.

Thank you Charissa, for your courage and doing the right thing. If we had a small part in helping you reach that decision we are gratified.--lorraine

Ethiopian Adoption: Trying to Do the Right Thing

The other day while we were blogging about Find My Family, I got an email from a certain C.U., who was trying to adopt from Ethiopia. However, being a person of good conscience, she found that she and her spouse were going to adopt children who already had mothers. They were not orphans. She was horrified and stunned and did the right thing, as you will see. We've emailed back and forth a couple of times, and C.U. offered to share her experience here because it needs to be out in the wider world:

When we decided to adopt from Ethiopia, our assumption was that the children would be truly orphans! Having nobody! However, when we found out the children have living birth mothers, we simply asked our agency why the mothers did not want their children, and if a family sponsorship program would be more appropriate. Our agency [Ed: Celebrate Children International, Oviedo, FL] director became very defensive. She didn't know why the mothers didn't want to raise their children, we would find out those details when we  traveled, she said (when it would be too late). She said there was no such thing as family sponsorships in Ethiopia!

However, we have since researched and found out that there are many such programs and that any ethical agency would both sponsor and support these programs. We have gotten the feeling from the beginning that something very shady is going on, especially since the agency was directly involved in the relinquishment process. In fact, in the videos we received, we can see families that appear to be lining up in the background for their own interviews. Very, very fishy. And you are right, when I tried to bring this to the attention of other mothers in the group, I was reprimanded for questioning this wonderful woman who has a heart to find families for orphans. In fact, I was kicked off the agency's yahoo group and my login was disabled, simply for asking questions about ethics in adoption!!

I would love to figure out a way to shut this agency down, but that is not my primary goal. My primary goal is to find the children and return them to their families, since I believe that is where they belong. By the way, when we terminated our contract, the children went right back up on the waiting child list. And I have contacted all the photolisting sites that continue to list this agency's 'orphans' and they have ignored my plea to remove them from these photolisting sites.

We have been at a loss as to how to handle this. We knew we did not want to adopt children who were not orphans, yet we did not want to leave them in the hands of a crooked agency who would just adopt them out to someone else. For two months we have been working with the Ethiopian Embassy. All our communication has been through one person there. She assures us that they are all very concerned about our evidence, she assures us that our case is being investigated. However, two months have gone by, and even though we have given them the name of the city, orphanage, pictures of the children and their mothers, and the name of the facilitator we have heard nothing about the well being or whereabouts of the children. Why would they not be able to find the children unless they are not really looking for them?

Anyway. I have been under an incredible amount of stress, knowing we committed to these children and we don't want to feel like we abandoned them. We have no idea how to go about finding orphans in Ethiopia without the help of the adoption agency! I thought maybe with your passion for birth mothers and your research, maybe you would know someone who could help us? We would like someone to investigate what is going on and hopefully return the children to their families. We have contacted the State Department, Joint Council, U.S. Embassy, state of Florida. Nobody really seems to know how to help us. Do you have any ideas?

I suggested she work with one of the organizations such as my all time fave, Women for Women International, which supports women for a year in war-torn countries such as The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, and teaches them a trade so they can support themselves and their children, but I realize that will not help her find the mother of the children she wants to support in Ethiopia. Jane suggested that she contact Congressperson or Senator and ask him/her to get after the State Department to look into this; her local media, and the local media, as well as a reputable agency like Holt in Oregon and ask for suggestions on what to do about this rogue agency.

I want to add that while infrequent readers of our blog will find that we are not happy with many adoptive parents, our hearts are gladdened when we come across ethical people such as C.U. In another email, she asked about the special-needs children that other members of her family had adopted--would we have them languish in under-funded orphanages when they could be with families who love them and give them the best care they can? Obviously not. But most people--lets say, Madonna, want and adopt cute, healthy kids. Who have families who want them and have a different idea of what adoption means than we do in the Western world where the social contract pretends that the past is of no matter, that heritage is not important, that parents give up their children and do not long for them all their lives.

Along this same vein, Chinaadoptiontalk has great post, "They Will Return to You," about the different perceptions of what adoption is to people in other nations, not Western. And while we previously have noted that Christian World Adoptions were not facilitating adoptions from Ethopia, their website says they are back at it again. How many more children and mothers must be savaged and lied to before agencies like Christian World Adoptions and others are stopped? How many more children will be kidnapped from the streets of Karachi or Kathmandu?

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We will return to the subject of adoptee gratitude soon. --lorraine

Harvesting Children from Ethiopia for Families in America

Harvesting children for profit goes on in poor countries all over the world. Ethiopia is one of the newest to cash in on this crop for export, a business spurred by Angelina Jolie's adoption of a daughter Zahara in 2005. According to a new report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, approximately 30 children a week leave the country to adopted in wealthier nations, adding $100 million a year to the cash-strapped economy. Consequently, the government has little to zero interest in stopping this flow of cash and so turn a blind eye to harvesting of their children.

And one of the most successful human trafficking scams is run by no other than the Christian World Adoption, included in yesterday's post decrying the closing of adoption from Guatemala. Yes, there true orphans in Ethiopia--up to five million--but the disgusting tactics of Christian World Adoptions encourages families and women to give up their children simply because they are poor. It's the crassest of proselytizing to raise new Christians; left behind with their tears and memories are the mothers, these women who are our sisters in sorrow and grief. Yet here is how the adoptions are sold at the Christian World Adoptions website:

Ethiopia Adoption

• Our Ethiopia adoption program is one of CWA’s largest and most affordable adoption programs.
• Infants, toddlers, children from ages 3 months to young teens are all in great need of loving, forever families they can call their own.

Ethiopia Adoption Program

Christian World is very pleased to be among the first U.S. agencies authorized and accredited to have an Ethiopia adoption program. The Ethiopia adoption program is our largest program, and each year we place over 200 children from Ethiopia with loving, forever families.

A recent documentary called Fly Away Children by journalist Andrew Geoghegan for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation shows the tactics used to convince women to give up their children. The women are promised updates and information every three months, only to hear nothing. The families who come to take their children are advised to come in and out of the country quickly so as not to be aware of what is really going on, or they send someone to pick up the child so as to not touch down in the country at all. Often children are advertised as healthy--videos you can watch on your computer are available--only to have multiple life-threatening problems.

As Geoghegan reports in Fly Away Children:

Across the city, hotel foyers have become clearing houses, departure lounges for many families and their adopted children. This is the scene in just one hotel in Addis Ababa. And the website You Tube is plastered with new parents’ home movies.

The crude reality is that children have become a big Ethiopian export....

Ethiopia is not a signatory to the Hague Convention which requires international adoption be used only as a last resort. So as a result, a completely unregulated industry has grown up. More than 70 agencies operate here, almost half are unregistered. Corruption, fraud and deception are rife.

The movie takes just under a half hour to watch but is worth your time--especially if you are thinking of adopting from a foreign country. Included is a family from Palm Beach, Florida who went to Ethiopia to take three children from their mother, a pastor and his wife, who were facing the empty-nest syndrome because their three sons were grown and gone. Why did it not occur to them simply to find a woman who needed help and support her so she could raise her own children? In most African countries, $25 to $50 a month will provide a family with a good living.These people live in Palm Beach, one of the wealthiest communities in the country, and it was obvious they could support several families if their goal was to actually help others. No, their goal was to fill their house with children. And certainly they are being congratulated and praised for taking all three siblings. But instead of helping, they put additional pressure on the suppliers to come up with more children to harvest for the American market. Do they piss me off? Oh yeah. Because it's all done under the rubric of "doing good" but they are Doing Bad by taking children who have a mother--but who is simply too poor to raise them. Christian? Hardly.

They might also consider helping the family, also featured in the ABC report, that ended up caring for a seriously ill child whose drugs cost nearly $750 a month. They were told the child they picked out of the sales lineup of photos was healthy, but instead has multiple problems, and they, quite courageously, are making do.

Parents who adopt from other cultures need to be absolutely sure that they are not taking stolen children, that the children they adopt are true orphans. But in their desire to have a child, many simply look away, and say, Not my child. If you don't think it can happen to you, read this story about a child kidnapped in India and sold for just over $300. He is being raised in the Midwest. The other day at the beach I saw a woman with two little girls, one obviously her biological daughter,the other obviously Indian. Who are her real parents? I thought. Was this another kidnapped child whose family wonders what happened to their beautiful daughter? And she was beautiful. A prime candidate for kidnapping.

The whole business of harvesting children to feed the international market for babies reeks of corruption and deceit and fraud. Call it humanitarian, and you are deluding yourself. Harvesting children from other cultures and countries is the whole trafficking of children. I am reminded of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's book about a class of women who are recruited to have children for others. Sadly, it has become a reality in our lifetime.--lorraine

Note: To make this even more sickening, when I edited this post as a reader suggested, I got an ad for Ethiopia Adoption...from an International Adoption site. As well as three other ads-just in case I had a baby to give up in an "open adoption." I'm going to give Google a piece of my mind.