Are standards dropped when the adopted children aren't white?

'In the saga of the twins,there has been hardly any discussion of the racial background of the children'

By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Tuesday, 23 January 2001

Imagine this. A well-heeled British Nigerian couple decide to buy a daughter on the internet because they have five sons and are desperate for a girl. They find twin girls in the USA. Lovely, they are, the children of a Polish immigrant and Tammy, a blonde, blue-eyed country & western singer from Oklahoma.

Booming Polish Market: Blond, Blue-Eyed Babies

By GABRIELLE GLASER,

Published: Sunday, April 19, 1992

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INHOFE BI-PARTISAN EFFORTS TO FACILITATE FOREIGN ADOPTIONS

Congressional Desk June 26, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) joined U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) in introducing a bi-partisan adoption bill, the Foreign Adopted Children Equality (FACE) Act (S. 1359), eliminating many of the hurdles internationally adopted children of American citizens currently face before they come to the United States. Currently, the adopted child must be approved for a U.S. immigrant visa to be able to join their American family. This is often a very lengthy and expensive process. The FACE Act would provide automatic U.S. citizenship to children adopted by Americans, eliminating many of the complications involved with moving these children to the United States and granting them full rights afforded any other American child.

"It is estimated that there are over 143 million orphans in the world today, and millions of them are growing up on the streets or in institutions that lack the resources to provide the love and care that every child deserves," said Inhofe. "I have seen this problem first-hand in my travels to the continent of Africa. Unfortunately, many nations lack the number of willing and able adults to adopt and care for these children. It is vitally important that adults from outside nations be allowed to take action to address this problem. Inter-country adoption permits American families the opportunity to love and care for these children while providing them with hope and a future. I want to work to make it easier for American families to adopt, and easier for orphaned children to be adopted."

The Act would treat an adopted child of an American citizen the same way a biological child of the same citizen is treated if born abroad. American citizens who give birth to a child while overseas simply take their proof of citizenship and the child´s birth certificate to the U.S. Embassy and apply for and receive a U.S. passport and a Consular Report of Birth. The FACE Act provides equal treatment of internationally adopted children with foreign born biological children of American citizens.

Three jailed for child trafficking

AP

Last updated 22:24 26/06/2009

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Dozens of human smugglers captured

‘MOMMIES’: : The human smuggling ring uses women as mules to transport Chinese girls to the US, where they are likely to wind up trapped in brothels or sweatshops

By Jenny W. hsu

STAFF REPORTER

Friday, Jun 19, 2009, Page 1

Liberia: Former Dep. Health Minister Queries WACSN's Suspension

10 June 2009

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Published in the May/June 2009 Humanist

In April 1975, under the manufactured threat of a mass slaughter of infants and children by advancing North Vietnamese forces, Western relief agencies and orphanages in South Vietnam, and finally the U.S. government, pressed into action a daring “rescue” plan dubbed Operation Babylift. Vietnamese children under the jurisdiction of the relief agencies and orphanages--along with any other child who was either handed to them or picked up off the street--were to be sent out of the country and placed with adoptive parents in Western countries. The operation was controversial; aside from the fact that not all the children evacuated were orphans and adoption documentation was often sketchy, the cargo plane that lifted the initial group of evacuees crashed, killing 141 of 149 children on board. Nevertheless, by the time the Vietnam War officially ended on April 30, 1975, approximately three thousand infants and young children had been taken out of Vietnam for the purpose of adoption.

Although Operation Babylift was specific to Vietnam, it fits into a pattern of U.S. intervention in Asia that includes Korea and the adopting of Korean children in the 1950s for very similar reasons.

Cold War Calculations

After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States attempted to divide up the world both ideologically and militarily. The Domino Theory promoted by the United States, which speculated that if a region came under the influence of communism then the surrounding countries would follow, justified using the Korean and Indochinese peninsulas as proving grounds for injecting American influence around the world. The U.S. government poured millions of dollars and thousands of combat troops and support personnel into the wars in Korea and Vietnam to preempt any more countries from falling to the communists.

Six women nabbed in alleged baby trafficking

The Jakarta Post | Tue, 01/20/2009 2:59 PM | City

TANGERANG: Tangerang Police arrested six women at a house in Village Tangerang Regency I housing complex in Gebang Raya, Jati Uwung, for baby trafficking.

Jati Uwung Police chief Insp. Yade Setiawan Ujung identified the suspects by the initials DS, ES, TM, LW, NT and YT.

Yade said the arrest was made following a tip-off from their neighbors, who saw the suspects carrying babies in and out of the house.

Police Arrest 3 in Baby-Trafficking Case in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES – Three people were arrested in the Argentine city of Rosario in the investigation of a band suspected of trafficking in babies and allegedly comprised of doctors, midwives and lawyers, the press reported Tuesday.

A court on Monday ordered a police raid on the provincial hospital in Rosario, which is located about 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Buenos Aires, because authorities suspect that two recently-born infants were sold, judicial officials said.

The investigation was begun after a complaint filed in April claimed that the sale of the baby of a 30-year-old woman who came to the city from the impoverished northern province of Santiago del Estero was arranged at the hospital.

Investigators believe that several instances of baby-selling were carried out recently by the band, which also included hospital employees, officials said.

Nigeria: Saving the Orphan

19 June 2009

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