For the past several weeks I’ve been following posts on The Lost Daughters website, where Karen Pickell and other contributors discussed The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption, by Karen Joyce. The thoroughly researched issues in the book have finally exposed the machinations of the adoption industry. For that, Karen Joyce has found her share of adversaries attacking her as being anti adoption. Those wanting to adopt should read her book if they want a better insight into the industry. Period.

My contention has always been quite simple: anything beholden to an institution should be examined and by definition be deemed suspicious, particularly when a lot of money is involved. The more money, the greater the suspicion should be.

In simpler societies, when a child becomes orphaned and needs a home, women in the community willingly care for it. Such are the simple systems that keep those communities whole. They may be poor (in capitalistic eyes) but their fabric remains intact. Our developed world has organizations that to a greater or lesser degree provide for children until an appropriate home is found. International adoptions are popular because the children are so cute, but primarily because the birth mother remains in a distant location, making her practically non-existent. But that is another story.

Money talks, and the lucrative adoption industry, thanks to wars and depressed social conditions in the less developed world, is thriving more than ever before. A decade ago I spent a year in Antigua, Guatemala. There I learned of frightening situations (three in particular) regarding the background and condition of children that had been put up for adoption and left for the US. The tentacles of American money and greed had settled for to corrupt an exploited, fragile community. After the Guatemalan government put an end to the trafficking, the industry removed itself to set up tent in another impoverished, war-ravaged country.

The problem is that the developed world’s sophisticated legal terms are not well understood in distant, less educated societies, and parents give their children up expecting them to return as well educated youths, ready to help their communities thrive. By the time the parents realize they will never see their offspring again, it’s too late. They feel they were tricked and robbed. The heartache is enormous, and the White world has created another reason for disdain.

And the children? Well, while young, are delightful “conversation pieces.” One day, in the not so distant future, they, too, will create a platform to vent their frustration at having lost their history and culture.