Lawmaker Wants To Stop Abuse, Neglect To “Re-Homed” Adopted Children

Lawmaker Wants To Stop Abuse, Neglect To “Re-Homed” Adopted Children

By Danielle Elias

Tuesday March 25, 2014 4:46 PM

UPDATED: Wednesday March 26, 2014 11:03 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An adopted child says she was abused. In turn, court documents show she was shipped away to keep her quiet.

This is a practice called re-homing, where children are sent from home to home and state to state. One of the families being investigated for adopting, then abusing, is in Central Ohio.

Now, a state lawmaker got wind of this alleged practice, and wants to make sure it never happens again in Ohio.

These are children who are typically unwanted, neglected and abandoned. They fall under the radar because of how they're monitored across the country, including Ohio.

18-year-old

shares a distant memory of her parents, who she hasn’t seen in so long.

Durand was adopted from her homeland of Haiti five years ago. She says her biological parents wanted to find her a better life.

Instead, she says she ended up with a family in Idaho, who - she says, months later - abused her.

“I've gotten hit all over, like in my face, my hand, my legs,” said Durand.

She says she and her adopted mother didn't get along. So, Durand says her adopted mother started posting on the internet to find her a new home.

Durand says she ended up being shipped back and forth from the same family in Idaho to different families in Ohio.

“We had her for almost 9 months . She was too much for us,” reads Durand, from a post online.

Each time she was returned, and Durand says each online post surfaced was more hurtful than the next.

“I have 8 other children, including her biological younger sister. None of us want her back,” read Durand, of another post online.

As it stands now, there are no federal or state laws to prevent it, but because of reported cases of abuse, one Ohio lawmaker wants it to stop.

“I wanted to do something that would protect children. I think our obligation, first, is to protect children,” said State Senator Charleta B. Tavares, (D) District 15.

Senator Tavares says she is putting together legislation that would ban the mishandling of adopted children in Ohio.

“That, in my mind, is criminal and in this day and time, we should not allow anything like that to happen,” said Sen. Tavares.

Tavares says she wants to make sure adopted children are registered with the courts, so that people like Nita Durand don't fall through the cracks.

“The child could very well be lost, the child could have been dead and we wouldn't know it because nobody registered the new family, where she left from, she just disappeared,” said Sen. Tavares.

Durand's adopted father, from Marysville, spoke with 10TV on Tuesday.

denies many of the accusations against him. He says his heart was in the right place, when adopting these children, and that he still loves his wife and children. Kruse is expected in court in May.