International Adoption: The Abuse Continues

Jane

Just after I wrote the previous post, "Utah agency places cast-off international adoptees" about Wasatch International, which places, or attempts to place, foreign adoptees who have been rejected by their adoptive families, one of our readers, Sara, sent us a link to a horrific case of abuse of foreign adopted children by their adopters.

According to reporters Molly Born and Paula Reed Ward of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Kristen and Douglas Barbour adopted two Ethiopian children in March. By October--five months later--the Barbours were in court, charged with "starving their six-year-old son and leaving him with lesions from being kept in urine-soaked clothing for long periods of time." As for the girl, the charge read, "The 18-month-old girl will likely be blinded in one eye and paralyzed after suffering head trauma."