It’s all perfectly legal
And that’s the problem. My government protects me from buying a cell phone made by child labor, but stamped its approval on my adoption of a child who was nobody’s idea of an orphan. David Smolin’s...
View Article‘Cambodian child trafficking for sex slavery’: a headline that never wears out
Questions CNN didn't askhttp://t.co/TysAqXYg8S December 11, 2013 Once again this morning CNN brings us the story, or part of it. Cambodian mothers who sold their tween daughters into brothels and now...
View ArticleOh Melissa…what were you thinking?
The legendary Melissa Harris-Perry, whose MSNBC news show has presented some truly insightful coverage of the racial history of the US, made a mistake. A photo of the Romneys’ grandchildren was never...
View ArticleAdoption agency workers indicted for…facilitating international adoptions?
This is good news: 4 people who work(ed) at IAG, an adoption agency in South Carolina, have been indicted for acts during the course of their work placing Ethiopian children with US families for...
View ArticlePro tip for aspiring adoption fraudsters: Don’t email your fake USCIS documents!
There are many troubling specifics in this indictment of IAG, the South Carolina adoption agency working in Ethiopia until a few months ago. I can’t begin to plumb the apparent recruitment of deaf...
View ArticleAdoption Advocates Int’l closes, for good
Fourteen years ago, we opened an application to adopt through AAI. Our home study reflected what we believed we could do: Parent any child under 2, from anywhere in the world. However, AAI’s director...
View Article“I’m going to Cambodia on my school break!”
“…and I’m going to play with orphans and dig a well for a village and buy silk handbags made by victims of human trafficking!” I cringe at the cheerful declarations from the well-intentioned youths,...
View ArticleWhy did Somaly Mam tell those vivid, awful and unverified tales?
Part 1: The trap of saving Cambodia Part 2: Why would anyone coach teenagers to lie about being sold into prostitution? Short answer: Because everyone can agree that girls who were sold or stolen to be...
View ArticlePart 3: All those sad stories are a bunch of scams, then? No. Really, they’re...
As Abigail Hayworth reports in this weekend’s ‘Guardian’, the most common form of sex trafficking in Cambodia isn’t counted by the UN studies or Cambodian law. The poorest families in the city, and...
View ArticleThe truth will set you free.
But first, it will piss you off. So saith Rita Mae Brown, and she had a point. This week, lawyers in South Carolina are choosing a jury for Mary Mooney. Of all the adoption agency owners in all the...
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