That is the front page headline in today's Washington Post. It's really part of a good sunday morning routine I have going here: plug in the iPod, twenty minute walk to the bagel place, breakfast sandwich, get a copy of the Post and sit outside with the spring weather, read about people stealing babies.

I saw the headline I walked into the bagel place and got the paper, and I have to admit that I immediately jumped to some conclusions. Surely this phenomena, while admittedly henious, was perhaps getting exaggerated just a little because headlines like "Electricity Dereguation: High Cost, Unmet Promises" don't pack quite the same punch as "Stealing Babies." And—I know this is hideously cruel, but it's the truth—it can be hard for me to feel that much sympathy for babies when the suburb I live in is infested with infants, a small clutch of whom are drowning out the Rachmaninov concherto I have on my iPod as we speak. So I was prepared to meditate on the necessity of being able to simulatniously condemn the indefensible depravity of abducting children and reprove the Post's yellow journalism... Hell, the chart beside the article was clearly labeled "Adoptions from China to the U.S."—and didn't show how many of of them were suspected to be adoptions of abducted children.

Then I read the article.

Despite my initial suspicions about the Post; despite the fact that actual babies have now ruined Mozart, Kayne West, and the original cast of Rent for me; despite hyperbolic headlines; this is a serious problem that deserves page A-1, above-the-fold treatment. Standard procedure for an American couple that wants to adopt a Chinese baby involves, at the penultimate stage, handing an orphanage director $3000 in cash. One aid worker estimated that less than 10% of that money will eventually end up going to the children in an orphanage. The White Swan hotel in Guangzhou—the city where adoptive parents take their new children to get visas from the State Department—gives guests "Going Home Barbie," dolls specially made by Mattel featuring Barbie and Ken and their adopted Chinese baby girl.

Chinese authorities recently busted a child-trafficking ring in Hunan provice, arresting 27 people including orphanage staff and local police officers who had filed fake reports of abandonded children. Neighbors of the Hengyang County orphanage, which, well, laundured the babies, say it sold as thirty babies a month to various orphanages. They recall six, ten, even twelve at a time being packed into vans. Hengyang is a poor county in a poor province, yet the orphanage director was driven around in a chauferred sedan. One of the defendant's lawyers is actually quoted in the post as saying "Old Lady Liang was quite well known locally for being warm-hearted and taking care of abandoned babies."

It's like the moment in M. Night Shyamalan's last film where you go from a Frank Capra-esque 18th Century village to "everything you know is a lie!" One adoptive parent from Salt Lake City, apparently competing for the Understatement of the Year award, says "it's a corrupt system." That's a typical reaction by one of the parents the Post interviews. They're shocked, ambivolent, uncertain. There's really nothing anyone could say to reassure them.

The world, after all, is a pretty unpleasant place. I was recently talking with a friend who had just found out that Americans import large amounts of pornography from former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe. I explaned, demonstrating more knowledge of the mechanics of the pornography trade than I'll admit to having in casual conversation, that Eastern Europe is one of the few places in the world where large populations of skinny, pale-skinned young people—the sort of person most Americans find attractive—are hungry and desperate. (Another such place is South Florida, but that's another post.)

In any case, child trafficking is still, in the end, a small part of the great Gordian Knot of humanitarian and international problems that is China. But it deserves a little front-page treatment, now and then.

Click here to buy a "If selling babies for profit is wrong, I don't want to be right" bumper sticker.

ok heres how we stop it..people would not want to buy babies if they had any experiences with teenagers..so we need to loan out our teenagers to young couples in need...any takers ?
simple solutions from seattle

Posted by  Anonymous @ 6:06 PM

 

Well at least you have a good Sunday morning routine. I had to get up and go to work at 6 am. today - Exploited UT worker

Posted by  Anonymous @ 6:34 PM

 

By the way, that "Cat and Girl" website is blocked by IHC's filter. - IHC Plantation Dweller

Posted by  Anonymous @ 2:26 PM

 

I think you and your readers should move back toward that "yellow journalism" idea, and hopefully you will after you read Brian Stuy's ("adoptive parent from Salt Lake City") responses to the Post's attempting to sensationalize and connect two different things: child abduction and adoption. Most importantly, Mr. Stuy points out, there is no evidence that any of the babies involved in the child trafficking ring were abducted. They were evidently given up willingly. Instead of abandoning them in a public place these parents paid the liaison to unofficially get them to an orphanage or adoptive parents.

Also notice that Mr. Goodman never (the Post author) states that any of the victims of kidnapping whose parents he interviewed made there way into the adoption system, foreign or otherwise.

You must understand that some 250,000 to as much as one million children are abandoned in China each year. Dozens of thousands are adopted domestically, despite economic and logistical disincentives. Most Chinese parents giving up children are doing so out of ponderous cultural pressure, unbelievable economic hardship and in response to China's "one child" population control policy. These parents are forced to relinquish children secretly and illegally in the face of fines that could bankrupt them for life.

Western parents don't just fly over to China wave some dollars around and come home with a baby. And they don't do so because it so much more convenient than adopting other deserving children. In the U.S., such parents experience close scrutiny, go through a rigorous application process and must appropriately pay a lot of fees to U.S. government agencies an adoption agency (most are non-profit). Parents are not on tour when they are in China; they are desperately trying to find whatever scant information they can about their child's birth, and learning about their child's culture of birth. These are crucial tools for raising a child who is psychologically comfortable with her or his adoption and cultural/racial status.

I am biased. We are waiting to adopt from China. When I first heard about the Hunan situation, I was horrified. Sadly, however, there is no shortage of abandoned children in China, healthy or not. Because of this fact, the impact of Western adoption in China on baby trafficking and vice versa is likely still small. For all the reasons given, I pray and hope that in adopting, we are still doing the right thing.

Is there corruption in China? Absolutely! Is their child abduction? Yes, in China and worldwide. Is international adoption impacting the child trafficking trade? Probably. Is the Washington Post writer unscrupulously trying to connect a lot of disparate dots to make a sensation? I think so!

Posted by  Baba @ 6:21 PM

 

Kvc is doing it running poor people over someone realy needs to put a scoop up there *(--

Posted by  Anonymous @ 3:38 PM

 

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