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Hope for couples who bought children from trafficking ring

Submitted by Kerry on Mon, 2013-01-28 01:30.

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By JOSEPHINE JALLEH

January 28, 2013 / thestar.com

GEORGE TOWN: Those who bought children from the recently-busted child trafficking ring may be able to get them back, if they go through the proper channels this time.

Penang Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environ­ment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said the couples should apply to the state Welfare Department.

“But first, the children’s biological parents need to be traced to determine why they gave them away,” he said yesterday.

Phee also said the children’s attachment to their adoptive parents should be taken into consideration.

“We are concerned about the effects of separation,” he said.

The children are believed to have been placed in a shelter home in Johor.

On Friday, four women and a man claimed trial in a Butterworth Sessions Court to trafficking in seven children between 2008 and Jan 16 this year.

Police busted the child trafficking syndicate with the arrest of 33 people and the rescue of nine children aged between two months and eight years.

Penang police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi had said the syndicate sold babies and children for between RM18,000 and RM30,000.

Penang Welfare Department (JKM) director Zulkifli Ismail said there were a lot of applications by couples who wanted to adopt, resulting in a long waiting list.

“The demand is high and it’s not every day that we have a child found or given to us.

“But when there is a child available, we quickly contact the couple who has waited the longest,” he said.

He added that the department would monitor the progress of those given up for adoption to ensure they were safe with their new families.

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Infant child trafficking and a child's best interest

Submitted by Kerry on Mon, 2013-01-28 02:05.

It needs to be noted what was said about another "busted" child trafficking case involving baby brokers, "desperate" PAPs, and the modern-day adoption industry that gives little care to the traumas felt by the infant/newborn and the many ways maternal deprivation (forced separation from the birth-mother) affects that newborn/infant:

[This] trafficking ring was apparently operating based on their ability to target vulnerable young women and talking them out of having abortions in order to purchase their babies once born and sell them to families in a lucrative form of adoption brokering.

[From:  Eight Children Rescued from Traffickers , 2010 ]

Sugar-coat all you want, this practice - otherwise known as coercion - is NOT in a child's best interest.  Plain and simple, coerced infant adoption serves the wants and desires of private operators (adoption facilitators and adoption lawyers) and adopters wanting an infant, not the infant left to deal with a life-time of adoption issues rooted in the fear of rejection and abandonment.

Adding insult to injury, I almost choked when I read the Penang Welfare Department (JKM) director's final comment:

[He added that] the department would monitor the progress of those given up for adoption to ensure they were safe with their new families.

Without long-term mandatory post-placement monitoring, how can child safety be guaranteed?   (What AP "desperate" for an infant will agree to this requirement/stipulation made by an adoption lawyer or adoption agency?  And how likely is this 'requirement' going to be implemented and maintained on a long-term basis -- over 5 years?) 

As PPL's token resident angry adoptee ( relinquished immediately after-birth, made possible through private adoption), speaking on behalf of abused adoptees, I need to ask:  when will birth-mothers AND adopters learn there is significant damage and risk that's being overlooked in Adoptionland, and this damage being done to adoptees is, in many cases, not worth the value and praise given to the pro-life/pro-adoption movement? 

Infuriating title

Submitted by Cassandra (not verified) on Wed, 2013-01-30 09:23.

Hope for the couples, but not for the families who lost children, or the infants who may never get their families back.

The world's vision is absolutely skewed, isn't it?

Pro-life response

Submitted by Kerry on Wed, 2013-01-30 17:55.

Well, for those who insist adoption is "God's Design", they will insist those newborns were NOT wanted, but saved because the mothers were given the promise that those "chosen children" would be given loving parents, through adoption.  The subtext to this is:  God makes a mistake when he chooses the "wrong" woman to get pregnant, and corrects that mistake through the American adoption industry.   

To better understand how women are coerced out of abortion and into adoption, one really needs to follow how top-selling agencies, like Bethany Christian Services, operate.  For instance, this mega adoption giant just recently they made national news, as numbers related to ICA came out:

The international developments have narrowed the options for Americans who want to adopt. According to the latest tally by the National Council for Adoption — based on 2007 data — there were about 76,000 domestic adoptions that year, not including adoptions by relatives. Of that total, about 43,000 involved children adopted from foster care, and the rest were handled either by private agencies or private individuals, such as attorneys.

By last count, there were about 104,000 children in the U.S. foster care system available for adoption. This group generally includes many children with emotional or physical difficulties, as well as higher proportions of blacks and Hispanics than the general population.

Adam Pertman, executive director of the Donaldson Adoption Institute, said the decline in foreign adoptions was part of a broader change in the demography of adoption, but he stressed that ample options remain for parents wishing to bring a child into their homes.

"There's a growing number of parents who have trouble finding a child to adopt who fits into their original vision of what would happen," he said. "But if they are willing to adopt across racial and ethnic lines, or adopt older children, the kids are there."

Bill Blacquiere of Bethany Christian Services, one the largest U.S. adoption agencies, said his national network generally has a waiting list of some 700 would-be adoptive parents waiting for children to become available.

In hopes of adding at least a few more babies to the adoption pool, Bethany has teamed with a conservative media organization, Heroic Media, on an advertising campaign seeking to persuade pregnant women considering an abortion to choose adoption instead.

"We're not saying adoption is for everyone," Blacquiere said. "We're just saying, 'Be aware of all the facts.'"

[From:  Foreign Adoptions By Americans Decline Again, January 24, 2013 ]

I'm not suggesting all APs are negligent or bad;  some can be amazingly good.  However, adoption itself is a choice that needs careful consideration, especially since scientific study PROVES maternal deprivation can cause serious health risks and conditions in the infant, such as: 

  • Neonatal maternal separation alters stress-induced responses to viscerosomatic nociceptive stimuli in rat (data suggest that early life events predispose adult Long-Evans rats to develop visceral hyperalgesia, reduced somatic analgesia, and increased colonic motility in response to an acute psychological stressor, mimicking the cardinal features of irritable bowel syndrome.)
  • Neonatal maternal separation predisposes adult rats to colonic barrier dysfunction in response to mild stress (Neonatal maternal separation predisposes adult rats to colonic barrier dysfunction in response to mild stress.)
  • Neonatal Deprivation of Maternal Touch May Suppress Ornithine Decarboxylase via Downregulation of the Proto-oncogenes c-myc... (separation of young mammals from their mothers (MS) elicits very specific physiological and behavioral responses that can affect their development markedly. The maturational deficits resulting from prolonged MS are attributable to a variety of functional changes in hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal, neuroendocrine, and metabolic systems and their altered response to environmental stimuli)

    • Bottom line, some adoption issues never really go away for the adoptee. Sometimes the effects of forced separation/maternal deprivation manifest themselves in physical ways, like IBS, or other gastric dysfunctions.  Other times the effects of adoption (forced separation) manifest themselves through "unwanted" behaviors, like an inability to bond or trust others.  It comes down to this:  The fear of abandonment (and all the stress that goes with it) is one of those not openly discussed issues - because even most adoptees don't want to discuss it  too much - and yet the issue is very real for any child NOT kept by a parent.

    Therefore, I totally agree: The world's vision is absolutely skewed.   WHY the broken relationship between mother and child is celebrated as it is by so many within the adoption community really alludes and escapes me.... and such cheering makes me both sad and sick.

    Pound Pup Legacy