Broken, broken by the “Adoption Mafia’
The scandal around fifty illegally adopted Indian children is only the tip of the iceberg. Only in recent months similar practices came to light in Sri Lanka and Nepal, where hundreds of children are being channeled for big money to Western (probably Dutch) adoptive parents, pedophile rings and possibly even to criminals in the horrific trade.
Roelie Post, Dutch officials at the European Commission, in Brussels, had for many years the infamous dossier ‘Romanian children’ under her wings. She watched how the tortured land of the late communist dictator Nicolai Ceausescu bravely struggled to its feet, but was faced with the powerful international lobby of Western businessmen, politicians and even government officials who want to keep the foreign adoption streams intact, and preferably to grow.
Her opposition brought her into trouble: our compatroit was threatened and sidetracked. Today exclusively in De Telegraaf: the shocking story of the Dutch whistleblower on children in Brussels
Children Whistleblower Roelie POST describes the gruesome practices around the trade in ‘orphans’
by Jolande van der Graaf
ROTTERDAM, Saturday
HONDURAS, 1992. In Tegucigalpa a criminal organization appears to have kidnapped about 800 children. Of hundreds of these boys and girls organs would have been harvested in underground operating rooms. The most beautiful children disappeared to feeding centres, from where – after being fattened – they are sold on for $ 5,000 a piece to Western adoptive parents.
ROMANIA, 1992. The head of the committee for adoptions raises the alarm because of a true sale of children. In just half a year the huge number of 10,000 boys and girls from poor families, orphanages and boarding schools appears to be traded for abroad for astronomical amounts as so-called orphans.
RUSSIA, 1992. Aid workers discover that more than 600 children have disappeared. The little ones seem to be bartered. For medicines, toys and clothes that landed up everywhere, except in children’s homes.
ALBANIA, 1992. The squandering of toddlers and preschoolers for televisions, cameras or watches is for the then President reason to halt all adoptions with immediate effect.
Just a year with just a selection from a set of documented examples of child trafficking. For over twenty years, in the adoption world – despite wonderful arrangements in international human rights treaties – there are continuous atrocities and tragedies taking place. And there is only one cause: the demand for adoptive children in the rich West is many times greater than the supply from poor countries.
Commodities
Ten years ago, UNICEF concluded that intercountry adoption often does not happen because of the welfare of children, but should be seen as “profitable trade with major financial interests and its own, international lobby that sees children as commodities”. It is simply significantly more lucrative to flog children abroad than to help them in their own country.
In the global child trafficking the above- and underworld are closely intertwined to give the criminal activities a legal touch. Networks range from spotters who are looking for pregnant women, to bribed midwives, doctors and directors of children’s homes. Corrupt lawyers, civil servants and juvenile courts provide the necessary export paperwork. The Western adoption agencies and their customers (eager couples) often work under the mollifying motto ‘children in the rich West are always better off.
The illegal obtaining of children ranges from outright kidnapping to babysitters who deliver children on order. Nothing is too crazy to get birth parents to sign relinquishment papers; young (teenage) mothers get money, free maternity care and gifts if they give their children. The women are often lied to and promised that they can keep contact with their child. Not infrequently, young mothers in childbirth are told that their child died at birth, while the lively newborn is already hidden in a back room where it will receive the status of ‘abandoned baby’.
Roelie Post, Dutch civil servant at the European Commission, got, since 1999, faced with the horrific practices. “I worked in the Directorate-General which deals with the accession of new EU Member States. From a post in agriculture, I went to the Romania Team and I was given the so-called children’s dossier. Which consisted of monitoring of adoption and financing of projects such as the reform of child protection. I had at that time no idea of the incredible practices that I would encounter. ”
Quickly the Dutch woman discovered what it was really about in the international adoption world. “They spoke in terms of ‘market value’, ‘quotas’ and ‘price volatility’ as if I was still in agriculture and if it was not about children but about bags of grain.” Whereas the Romanian adoption market, from 1992 under then President Iliescu, was as good as shut down – when traders instantly migrated to Russia and Bulgaria – his successor had opened the doors wide open again since 1997. Again large numbers of Romanian children crossed the border.
read on:
http://www.againstchildtrafficking.org/2007/06/broken-broken-by-the-adoption-mafia/
Love Always
mudra
The scandal around fifty illegally adopted Indian children is only the tip of the iceberg. Only in recent months similar practices came to light in Sri Lanka and Nepal, where hundreds of children are being channeled for big money to Western (probably Dutch) adoptive parents, pedophile rings and possibly even to criminals in the horrific trade.
Roelie Post, Dutch officials at the European Commission, in Brussels, had for many years the infamous dossier ‘Romanian children’ under her wings. She watched how the tortured land of the late communist dictator Nicolai Ceausescu bravely struggled to its feet, but was faced with the powerful international lobby of Western businessmen, politicians and even government officials who want to keep the foreign adoption streams intact, and preferably to grow.
Her opposition brought her into trouble: our compatroit was threatened and sidetracked. Today exclusively in De Telegraaf: the shocking story of the Dutch whistleblower on children in Brussels
Children Whistleblower Roelie POST describes the gruesome practices around the trade in ‘orphans’
by Jolande van der Graaf
ROTTERDAM, Saturday
HONDURAS, 1992. In Tegucigalpa a criminal organization appears to have kidnapped about 800 children. Of hundreds of these boys and girls organs would have been harvested in underground operating rooms. The most beautiful children disappeared to feeding centres, from where – after being fattened – they are sold on for $ 5,000 a piece to Western adoptive parents.
ROMANIA, 1992. The head of the committee for adoptions raises the alarm because of a true sale of children. In just half a year the huge number of 10,000 boys and girls from poor families, orphanages and boarding schools appears to be traded for abroad for astronomical amounts as so-called orphans.
RUSSIA, 1992. Aid workers discover that more than 600 children have disappeared. The little ones seem to be bartered. For medicines, toys and clothes that landed up everywhere, except in children’s homes.
ALBANIA, 1992. The squandering of toddlers and preschoolers for televisions, cameras or watches is for the then President reason to halt all adoptions with immediate effect.
Just a year with just a selection from a set of documented examples of child trafficking. For over twenty years, in the adoption world – despite wonderful arrangements in international human rights treaties – there are continuous atrocities and tragedies taking place. And there is only one cause: the demand for adoptive children in the rich West is many times greater than the supply from poor countries.
Commodities
Ten years ago, UNICEF concluded that intercountry adoption often does not happen because of the welfare of children, but should be seen as “profitable trade with major financial interests and its own, international lobby that sees children as commodities”. It is simply significantly more lucrative to flog children abroad than to help them in their own country.
In the global child trafficking the above- and underworld are closely intertwined to give the criminal activities a legal touch. Networks range from spotters who are looking for pregnant women, to bribed midwives, doctors and directors of children’s homes. Corrupt lawyers, civil servants and juvenile courts provide the necessary export paperwork. The Western adoption agencies and their customers (eager couples) often work under the mollifying motto ‘children in the rich West are always better off.
The illegal obtaining of children ranges from outright kidnapping to babysitters who deliver children on order. Nothing is too crazy to get birth parents to sign relinquishment papers; young (teenage) mothers get money, free maternity care and gifts if they give their children. The women are often lied to and promised that they can keep contact with their child. Not infrequently, young mothers in childbirth are told that their child died at birth, while the lively newborn is already hidden in a back room where it will receive the status of ‘abandoned baby’.
Roelie Post, Dutch civil servant at the European Commission, got, since 1999, faced with the horrific practices. “I worked in the Directorate-General which deals with the accession of new EU Member States. From a post in agriculture, I went to the Romania Team and I was given the so-called children’s dossier. Which consisted of monitoring of adoption and financing of projects such as the reform of child protection. I had at that time no idea of the incredible practices that I would encounter. ”
Quickly the Dutch woman discovered what it was really about in the international adoption world. “They spoke in terms of ‘market value’, ‘quotas’ and ‘price volatility’ as if I was still in agriculture and if it was not about children but about bags of grain.” Whereas the Romanian adoption market, from 1992 under then President Iliescu, was as good as shut down – when traders instantly migrated to Russia and Bulgaria – his successor had opened the doors wide open again since 1997. Again large numbers of Romanian children crossed the border.
read on:
http://www.againstchildtrafficking.org/2007/06/broken-broken-by-the-adoption-mafia/Love Always
mudra
