The Baby Brokers - AmFOR.net

Child of Political Prisoners Sues "Adoptive" Parents , AP, BUENOS AIRES, Thursday, Feb 21, 2008, Page 7

A 30-year-old woman is suing her "adoptive" parents for kidnapping in a case that opened in an Argentine court on Tuesday, becoming the first child of disappeared political prisoners to press such charges. Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragan accused her "adoptive" parents Osvaldo Rivas and Maria Cristina Gomez Pinto of falsifying adoption documents to hide her identity. She made no comments on leaving court on Tuesday.

Thousands of leftists and dissidents vanished after being abducted by security forces during Argentina's 1976 to 1983 military regime, and human rights groups say more than 200 children were taken and given to military or politically connected families to raise.

Sampallo, who in 2001 learned that she is the daughter of missing political prisoners Mirta Mable Barragan and Leonardo Ruben Sampallo, is one of 88 young people who determined their identity with DNA tests coordinated by the human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Sampallo's mother was six months pregnant when she and her father were abducted on Dec. 6, 1977, said Sampallo's lawyer, Tomas Ojea Quentin. He said Sampallo was born in February 1978, while her mother was being held at a clandestine torture center. Ojea Quentin said former army captain Enrich Berthier is facing related baby theft charges in the case. He is being held at a military unit, while Sampallo's "adoptive" parents are reportedly free. Lawyers for Berthier and the Gomez Pintos refused comment when they left the courthouse.

The case marks the first time a woman has taken her "adoptive" parents to court in Argentina. There have been at least three earlier trials involving suspected illegal adoptions dating to the dictatorship that resulted in convictions -- but the plaintiffs were not the adopted children.

Canada

China

In China, Dark Side of Adoption Exposed
Parents speak out on coercion, theft of babies for profit

TIANXI, China - …One day in spring 2004, he presented himself at Yang Shuiying’s doorstep and commanded: “Bring out the baby.” … “I‘m going to sell the baby for foreign adoption. I can get a lot of money for her,” he told the sobbing mother as he drove her with the baby to an orphanage in Zhenyuan, a nearby city in the southern province of Guizhou. In return, he promised that the family wouldn‘t have to pay fines for violating China‘s one-child policy. Then he warned her: “Don‘t tell anyone about it.” … “I didn‘t understand that they didn‘t have the right to take our babies,” she said.

…Since the early 1990s, some 80,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad, the majority going to US families. The conventional wisdom has been that the babies, mostly girls, were abandoned by their parents because of the preference for boys and China‘s restrictions on family size… Parents who say their children were taken complain that officials were motivated by the $3,000 per child that adoptive parents pay orphanages… The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs, the government agency that oversees foreign and domestic adoption, rejected repeated requests for comment… For adoptive parents, the possibility that their children were forcibly taken from their birth parents is terrifying. “When we adopted in 2006, we were fed the same stories, that there were millions of unwanted girls in China, that they would be left on the street to die if we didn‘t help,” said Cathy Wagner, an adoptive mother from Nova Scotia. “I love my daughter, but if I had any idea my money would cause her to be taken away from another mother who loved her, I never would have adopted.”

…Each town has a family planning office, usually staffed by Communist Party cadres who have broad powers to order abortions and sterilizations. People who have additional babies can be fined up to six times their annual income - fines euphemistically called “social service expenditures.” “The family planning people are more powerful than the Ministry of Public Security,” said Yang Zhizhu, a legal scholar in Beijing. Throughout the countryside, red banners exhort, “Give birth to fewer babies, plant more trees,” and, more ominously, “If you give birth to extra children, your family will be ruined.” …Once a child is taken to an orphanage, parents can lose all rights. Zhou [Changqi] tried repeatedly over three years to get into the Changsha Social Welfare Institute, one of the major orphanages sending babies abroad, until one day he was told: “It‘s too late. Your daughter has already gone to America.”

Guatemala

GUATEMALAN ARMY STOLE CHILDREN FOR ADOPTION, REPORT SAYS

From CNN.com, 9-11-09: "The Guatemalan army stole at least 333 children and sold them for adoption in other countries during the Central American nation’s 36-year civil war, a government report has concluded. Many of those children ended up in the United States, as well as Sweden, Italy and France, said the report’s author and lead investigator, Marco Tulio Alvarez. In some cases, the report said, parents were killed so the children could be taken and given to government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad. In other instances, the children were abducted without physical harm to the parents." [See PHOTO, above, of 3 out of 4 Galicia family Guatemalan children stolen for adoption & later luckily reunited with their mother, Clara Galicia.]

Haiti

Haitian born adoptees currently being trafficked by nameless baby brokers for adoptions in the U.S., Canada and France will have a difficult time when they begin searching for answers to "Who am I?" and "Are my parents looking for me?" On 1-7-10, a 7.0 earthquake destroyed Port-au-Prince, Haiti, killing an estimated 200,000 inhabitants and leaving [at least] tens of thousands of children assumed orphaned, in addition to about 380,000 pre-earthquake orphans (estimates are by UNICEF). American would-be adopters, the Catholic Church, international adoption agencies and independent adoption facilitators applied pressure on the Haitian government in order to airlift the alleged orphans before anyone could confirm whether their parents or relatives are still alive -- At this writing, the first 500 or so alleged orphans were airlifted to the U.S. (according to the U.S. State Department)and 900 children were in process of being adopted from Haiti and placed in U.S. homes.

According to The Toronto Star (in "First Haitian Orphans To Arrive Today" by Allan Woods, 1-24-10), "In all, 154 Haitian children were approved in a fast-track adoption process, agreed to by the Canadian and Haitian governments... Officials suspect many orphans, either given up for adoption at birth, or those who lost parents in the earthquake, are being illegally spirited out of their homeland by childless families or organized traffickers [or sexual predators] hoping to profit from Haiti's administrative chaos.... The earthquake brought down the government building that housed all those records; it also killed the judge responsible for giving final approval to adoptions."

It is known that 53 children were airlifted to Pittsburgh (ABC World News, 1-19-10) and Catholic leaders pushed both Haitian and U.S. governments to airlift an unknown number of children to South Miami. At this writing, despite that Haiti has halted adoptions, the kidnap of Haiti’s children continues:

Excerpted from Afrikan World News, 1-31-10
“WHITES ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO KIDNAP BLACK CHILDREN IN HAITI”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Jan. 31) -- Ten U.S. Baptists detained trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti without government permission say they were just trying to do the right thing, applying Christian principles to save Haitian children. But their "Orphan Rescue Mission" is striking nerves in a country that has long suffered from child trafficking and foreign interventions, and where much of the aid is delivered in ways that challenge Haiti's own rich religious traditions. Prime Minister Max Bellerive on Sunday told The Associated Press that the group was arrested and is under judicial investigation "because it is illegal trafficking of children and we won't accept that." The Americans are the first people to be arrested since the Jan 12 quake on such suspicions. No charges have been filed. "From what I know until now, this is a kidnapping case," Bellerive told CNN.

...The government and established child welfare agencies are trying to slow Haitian adoptions amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them.

....The church members, most from Idaho, said they were only trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children....The children, ages 2 months to 12 years old, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children's Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived "very hungry, very thirsty, some dehydrated." One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, 'I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that," Willeit said. The orphanage was working Sunday to reunite the children with their families, joining a concerted effort by the Haitian government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other NGOs. As the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti is in a difficult spot - it needs aid, but deeply resents foreign meddling. Many have an uneasy relationship with American evangelical Christian groups that funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into their missions in Haiti. Since Haiti became the world's first black republic in 1804, its people have seen several U.S. military occupations, was wrongly blamed for the spread of AIDS and has been vilified for the Voodoo traditions brought from West Africa. Voodoo is one of Haiti's two constitutionally recognized religions, along with Roman Catholicism, and two-thirds of Haiti's 9 million people are said to worship its spirits. One Voodoo leader said the Idaho group's plan - to give each child "new life in Christ" while facilitating their adoptions by "loving Christian families" in the United States - is deeply offensive. ... We need compassion, not proselytizing now, and we need aid - not just aid going to people of the Christian faith." ...The 10 detained Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.

Mexico

OTHER BABY BROKERS (Foreign & Domestic)

BABY BROKERS NOMINATED FOR 2009 "DEMONS OF ADOPTION AWARD"

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the "Demons of Adoption Award" to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption AwardsTM. The 2009 nominees are:

TheBABYBROKERS

(Then and Now)

Skip to "Baby Brokers Directory" (by state and alphabetical name)

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BABY BROKERS DIRECTORY

U.S. BABY BROKERS

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Colorado

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District of Columbia

Florida

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INTERNATIONAL BABY BROKERS

Argentina

Child of Political Prisoners Sues "Adoptive" Parents , AP, BUENOS AIRES, Thursday, Feb 21, 2008, Page 7

Canada

China

In China, Dark Side of Adoption Exposed Parents speak out on coercion, theft of babies for profit

Guatemala

GUATEMALAN ARMY STOLE CHILDREN FOR ADOPTION, REPORT SAYS

Haiti

Excerpted from Afrikan World News, 1-31-10 “WHITES ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO KIDNAP BLACK CHILDREN IN HAITI”

Mexico

OTHER BABY BROKERS (Foreign & Domestic)

BABY BROKERS NOMINATED FOR 2009 "DEMONS OF ADOPTION AWARD"

NOTE: AmFOR would ADD to that list:

DIRECTORIES, all on one web-site:

KIDS FOR SALE WEBSITE

Americans For Open Records

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The
BABY
BROKERS

In China, Dark Side of Adoption Exposed
Parents speak out on coercion, theft of babies for profit

Excerpted from Afrikan World News, 1-31-10
“WHITES ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO KIDNAP BLACK CHILDREN IN HAITI”