Research-China Blogspot

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I came across the above blog today while "googling" China adoptions. I was saddened to hear about singer-songwriter, Steven Curtis Chapman's youngest "daughter" (adopted from China) being tragically killed in an accident, and it made me remember a sad documentary I saw several months ago. Have been unsuccessfully searching "You Tube" videos all morning, trying to find it again. It was a news documentary from either China or Vietnam, doing an indepth "investigation" into adoption practices in their country and interviewing several young mothers who tearfully reliquished babies for adoption in government-run hospitals that seemed to leave them no option.

I wondered WHERE "Maria" was relinquished in China, and if her first mother will ever know of her fate. So sad for everyone involved. The blog linked above (the title of this post) shares interesting discoveries about child-trafficking issues in Chinese adoptions. Here's a quote from "The Baby Trade":

"Stopping this traffic will be no small feat. The basic economic incentives that rule markets have a powerful hold, even when the trade is for humans. Infants can fetch anywhere between $5,000 and $25,000. Even if the biological parents see only a small fraction of that amount, in impoverished countries that may be a hefty sum. And parents in receiving countries buy babies in spite of corruption, in the hope of giving them a better life, without realizing that they may be encouraging more trafficking ("The Baby Trade", Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003, p.119).

My only gripe about international adoption is the fact that adoptive parents believe that they are truly helping orphaned children, when in fact, many international adoptees are simply not orphaned. Prospective adoptive parents remain on long waiting lists, and eventually get a relatively young child. Babies (not orphans) are born and then housed in "foster homes" for however many months (and dollars) it takes to complete the adoption "process". All the while, children living in orphanages remain and wait...and wait, and are still waiting. It doesn't make sense to me.