Kerry and Niels' blog

Almost two years ago we started compiling intercountry adoption statistics to present on our country pages. At the time we had hoped it would be as simple as going to the websites of the various central authorities and download a spread sheet with data, but it ended up to be much more difficult than that.

The website of the Hague Convention was our initial starting point, since they list all the Central Authorities and even have their own section with statistics. Unfortunately these statistics have not been updated since 2005. Statistics are being obtained by the Special Commission on the Practical Operation of the 1993 Intercountry Adoption Convention, which only comes together every four years. On such occasions many countries are not able to present statistics from the most recent two years, so the statistics of the Hague convention usually lag between two and six years.

Fortunately most receiving countries have a website listing more recent statistics than the website of the Hague Convention, so we were able to create a reasonably recent overview of adoption statistic, albeit with certain hiatuses. We tried to fill in those gaps by using statistics of the sending countries when we realized there is no correspondence between the figures of the sending countries and the receiving countries.

Some examples:

When we first started Pound Pup Legacy, in November 2006,  one of our main objectives was to raise public awareness to the problems adoptees face, in particular, abuse within the adoptive home and family. At first, we could not find much formal documentation addressing "abuse after adoption".  According to those who study adoption issues, it's known that abuse in adoptive homes does take place, but very few studies have been dedicated to the subject. Those studies that do pay some attention to abuse post placement contradict one another, or rather, focus on re-abuse of children adopted from the foster care system.

Ironically the movement to protect children from abuse was ignited by the case of Mary Ellen Wilson in 1874. Mary Ellen was an 8-year-old girl from New York City who was severely maltreated by her adoptive parents. Her discovery was much publicized at the time and eventually led to the establishment of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

135 years later, child protectors and baby savers seem to have forgotten about the little girl whose story inspired the American child protective movement.  Rather than admit flaws in adoptive services exist, many prefer to admit the adopted child who is found severly abused or dead is an "isolated incident" and as grave as the matter is, the public is reminded about the wonders of adoption and how well-off adopted children usually are.

Every abused adopted child is, of course, bad promotion for child placement agencies. The very premise of adoption is that an abused and neglected, "orphaned" child is better off with the adoptive family than with its biological family. Why else consider adoption?  So when the opposite ends up to be true, when a child was not abused prior to adoption, but was abused in the adoptive family, that whole premise of "saving a child from trauma and hardship" is being negated.

Abuse in adoptive families is therefore not only a phenomenon that has received little attention, but it is a phenomenon many (working in the placement industry) don't want to see studied, don't want to see explored, and don't want to be be uncovered.

Robert N. Hunn, attorney for Masha Allen in the case against Families Thru International Adoption, inc. (FTIA), Reaching Out Thru International Adoption, inc. (ROTIA), Child Promise, inc. and Jeannene Smith has filed a motion to withdraw with the Federal District Court of New Jersey.

In September last year, a Civil Action Complaint was filed on behalf of Masha Allen against the adoption agencies and representatives responsible for her placement with Matthew Mancuso. The complaint revolves around alleged negligence of the involved agencies to properly vet Matthew Mancuso before placing Masha with him and the way Reaching Out Thru International Adoption handled the post placement reporting.

According to testimony before a Congressional Committee, Matthew Mancuso had fabricated a post placement evaluation in the name of Social Services of Western Pennsylvania (a non-existent organization) and a social worker of ROTIA had performed a post placement evaluation over the phone. In short, no one ever went to see Masha and verified how she was doing. As a consequence Masha Allen suffered years of sexual molestation at the hands of Matthew Mancuso and pornographic material of the abuse still circulates on the internet.

The Civil Action Complaint filed in September 2008, sought compensation from the agencies involved in the placement of Masha Allen.

Now attorney Robert N. Hunn of the law firm Kolsby, Gordon, Robin, Shore & Behar (KGRSB), who represents Masha in the civil litigation, has filed a motion to withdraw claiming there have arisen irreconcilable differences between KGRSB and Faith Allen. Last summer a Georgia attorney, David S. Bills, retained KGRSB on behalf of his clients Faith and Masha Allen. Attorney Bills, representing Faith, has asked Hunn not to withdraw as counsel for Masha. The New Jersey Federal District Court will conduct a hearing on Hunn’s motion on April 6, 2009.

In September we reported about a lawsuit filed on behalf of Masha Allen against Families Thru International Adoption Inc., Child Promise Inc., Reaching Out Thru International Adoption and Jeannene Smith.

Recently Jeannene Smith filed a motion to dismiss in an attempt to counter the lawsuit filed against her.

For those not entirely familiar with the Masha Allen case: Jeannene Smith was working for Families Thru International Adoption as their New Jersey representative when Matthew Mancuso first applied for adoption. Shortly after, Jeannene Smith and Families Thru International Adoption terminated their collaboration. Jeannene Smith founded Reaching Out Thru International Adoption, which took over the Mancuso application eventually resulting in the adoption of Masha.

After the arrest of Matthew Mancuso, on account of sexual abuse and production and distribution of child pornography, Masha was placed in the care of Lynn Ginn aka Faith Allen. This placement is not without controversy, as can be read in Masha Allen betrayed again.

In September 2006, Masha Allen appeared before a congressional hearing, which in a second term, among others, questioned Jeannene Smith, who at the time seemed to suffer from temporary partial amnesia.

Yesterday around 9 PM CET, we discovered our website was no longer displaying any of the content we worked so hard for writing and collecting, but instead showed a grim message saying "This Domain (poundpuplegacy.org) Has Been Disabled".

Upon further inquiry with our hosting provider it seemed a complained had been filed over a comment that listed information from the Virginia Department of Health Professions, containing some of the licensing information of Ronald S. Federici. The complaint stated that we had listed personal information of aforementioned person, which was in violation of the terms of service and as a result of that our website had been taken down.

Oddly enough careforchildreninternational.com lists his licensing number too, but since that is a website owned by Ronald Federici, it seems all of a sudden this information is freely distributable. Of course that is in a context which strokes "the emperors" ego, while we remain critical of his work and that of "attachment therapists", whose work in our opinion closely resembles the practices of Ronald Federici.

It seems this is all about appearances and ways to make money. Any critical information about Ronald Federici is bad for business and therefore seems to be under attack. See also:  Attachment Therapist Cabal Led by Ronald Federici and Arthur Becker-Weidman Attempts to Shut Down ACT (Advocates for Children in Therapy).

Although we will not list information that will bring us in conflict with our hosting provider, the actions taken against us, have in fact fueled our vigilance when it come to "attachment therapists" and others that avoid that label, but whose work in our opinion isn't substantially different.

Sunday, November 9, the winner of the second Annual Demons of Adoption Awards was announced. Out of a list of 10 nominees the members and visitors of Pound Pup Legacy have chosen

to be the winner.

The annual Demons of Adoptions was created to to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption Awards

Masha Allen has filed a suit against the agencies involved in her adoption. Good news for those who want to hold child placement organizations responsible and accountable for the work they are supposed to do.

The defendants in the cace are Families Thru International Adoption, inc. (FTIA), Reaching Out Thru International Adoption, inc. (ROTIA), Child Promise, inc. and Jeannene Smith.

Let's clarify that list for those not too familiar with the Masha Allen case.

In 1997, Jeannene Smith was working as an independent contractor for FTIA. and in that capacity received a request for adoption from Matthew Mancuso, the man who later adopted Masha Allen. At that time relations between Jeannene Smith and FTIA were deteriorating and Jeannene Smith created her own agency, ROTIA, which finalized Masha Allen's adoption after Mancuso's request was transfered from FTIA to ROTIA.

During the congressional hearings  "Sexual exploitation of children over the internet: follow-up issues to the Masha Allen adoption before the subcommittee on oversight and investigations of the committee on energy and commerce house of representatives",  Keith Wallace, Chief Executive Officer of FTIA, made the following testimony with regards to Jeannene Smith and her relations with FTIA:

While we can never be sure Seymour Kurtz and his adoption agencies will be really out of business until the man is dead and buried, today news arrived that indicate his organization is no longer in business.

When we wrote the post Seymour Kurtz: an update, we got in contact with Suz Bednarz, who has a blog called Writing my wrongs and is the founder of ehbabes.com.  In an email exchange she told us about a rumour Easter House, one of the agencies run by Seymour Kurtz, had been shut down. According to security of the building "the Feds raided them". Illinois Department of Children and Family Services wouldn't confirm or deny they were still licensed.

Today we were forwarded an email sent to Suz by an American couple living in Switzerland, who were in the process of adopting through Adoption World, Inc., another of Seymour Kurtz' agency. The email stated:

December 2006 we engaged the services of Adoption World and paid them $5,000.00 between this time and August 2007. We also paid $7,000.00 to their partner company American Institiute for Family Services, Inc, also in Chicago, at the same address, to complete our dossier. Just yesterday, July 23,2008 we received registered mail packet with our file and a letter stating that Adoption World could no longer provide service to us and they will be giving up their license in the state of Illinois. No money has been returned. The telephone number no longer works, neither does the number for Easter House or Birth Hope in Arizona. I am filing a complaint with the Attorney Generals office in Illinois consumer fraud bureau. I have also emailed the Illinois department of Children and Family Services.

See: Kurtz in Europe for the entire email.

Let's hope for all those hurt by the practices of Seymour Kurtz cum suis, this is truly the end of an era, but quoting Suz in an email exchange earlier today: "My fear is that it is not. But I will hope. Kurtz is crafty. He will set up shop elsewhere under some other bogus name". She could very well be right he survived two congressional hearings and dozens of lawsuits and still managed to be in business. A business that started June 4, 1952. Maybe at the age of 78, the time has come for Seymore Jerome Kurtz to end his baby broker business, but we can only be certainty of that when we read his obituary.

When in 1985, Seymour Kurtz incorporated his Homes for Children International, he was probably not the first to use the state of Georgia, to make money out of the trade of children, but he certainly was not the last.

In october 2006, Atlanta's WSB-TV channel 2's action news presented this news. Alpharetta police had opened a criminal investigation into international adoption services company AmRex for having pocketed $500,000 in fees paid by prospective adoptive parents.

Where Kurtz, in the 1980's had been called a baby-broker, times had changed in the new century, Sergey Zasyatkin and his ex-wife Marina Zakharova going by the more respectful sounding title of adoption facilitators. Though much like Kurtz, they had a complex network of organizations and affiliations, all starting and ending with AmRex.

Unlike Kurtz and his generation these were not lawyers, with a business interest in the trade of children, but linguists. Both Zasyatkin and Marina Zakharova held a degree in linguistics and so did several of their key staff-members, all of them from Russia, all of them fluent in English.

In a world where it is more important who you know than what you know, communication is key, especially when doing business abroad and AmRex was created to do business abroad. No coercion of young American women, like in the old days, just let the deplorable situation in Russia do its work, let the carnage take place there, and have a clean-cut American business do the “good work”.

When perusing the internet for information about the incidence of abuse in adoptive families it's impossible not to come across the scribblings of the apologists:

Charles Tannock: As for the cases in which Romanian orphans have been abused by adoptive parents, Tannock underlines that there is no evidence that abuses are more frequent in domestic or international adoption cases than they are in their natural biological families.

Adam Pertman: The fact is that the vast majority of the 22,000-plus annual international adoptions by Americans - including 5,865 from Russia last year - are highly successful, and the resulting families are as fulfilled as those formed in any other way. You might not know it, though, from reading the newspaper or watching television.

Adam Pertman: "Far more children die of abuse and neglect in biological families than in adoptive families,"

Thomas Atwood: These incidents are extremely rare indeed. One is too many. It should never happen. That's absolutely true. But 12, as you cited, is the highest estimate I've heard, and that's out of 43,000 children in 14 years. So if you compare that to the rate of children harmed by Russian parents in the general population or the kind of harm that children can suffer while in those Russian orphanages, that rate is probably less than those other rates.