The Evangelical Christian Adoption Scam
Evangelical Christians often remind me of a large overly-friendly dog in a room full of priceless glassware. Even though the dog's intentions are the best, every time it wags its tale, it breaks something.
The latest example comes in an interview with Kathyrn Joyce on Fresh Air about her new book The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption. The book explores the booming "adoption" industry around the world that's been created by the huge demand for children by evangelical Christian parents in the United States.
It all starts with evangelical leaders coming to believe that they had a PR problem. The public perceived them as merely being against everything -- anti-abortion, anti-gay, and so forth. Evangelicals felt that the wider public was losing sight of the role that "good works" played in Christianity. So along comes a religious mission to adopt children from developing countries, fueled by the belief that the adopted children would be saved twice: first by having a home with better living conditions and second by being introduced to the Gospel.
And thus was born an international web of deceit, frauds, scams, misinformation, perverse incentives, trafficking in children, and "adoptions" that amount to borderline kidnapping. In one case discussed by the author, a young evangelical couple decided to adopt three sisters from Ethiopia. An adoption "agency", motivated by the huge amount of money involved, presented the sisters as children of a mother who had died of AIDS and a father who was sick with AIDS. The couple was told that the father would soon die and that the young sisters would be forced into prostitution.
As it turns out, the sisters were well cared for and were children of a man who worked for the Ethiopian government and wasn't sick at all. The father was actually a part of the Ethiopian middle class and very much a part of his daughters' lives. Furthermore, the agency had told him that "adoption" was merely a sort of extended study abroad program where the sisters could live in the US and get an education that would enable them to return to Ethiopia and help their family.
In many developing countries, there is no notion of adoption as a permanent transfer of parental rights as it's thought of in the US. Instead, adoption is thought of as more of a guardianship.
When the couple went to meet the three Ethiopian sisters and found that they were well-dressed and older than the agency said, they got suspicious and did some investigating. They even managed to get in touch with the father, compare notes on what the agency had said, and learn that the father had no desire or reason to give up his children. Incredibly, the evangelical couple went through with the adoption anyway.
Later in the interview with Ms. Joyce, we learn that a legal loophole means that adoption agencies aren't legally liable for giving false information to prospective evangelical parents. Wait, what was that? Not legally liable? It seems like they should be criminally prosecuted for such scams.
The reason that this particular couple was trying to adopt from Ethiopia was that Ethiopia is the current "hot spot" for crooked agencies and traffickers to use as a source of children. The previous "hot spot" had been Guatemala and the situation got so bad there that the government shut the whole racket down.
So perhaps it's now easier to see things through the eyes of the Russians, who are making an effort to put a stop to their children being adopted by US parents.
And as for evangelical Christians, perhaps this should be a cautionary tale on the need to actually learn about other cultures before rushing in to convert them to another way of thinking. That way, evangelicals could form a real understanding of the people and needs of other countries so as to be in a better position to do actual good.
But I'm not holding my breath for the arrogant bastards to learn such a simple lesson.
"Humans can't refrain from drawing conclusions. You should learn to understand other cultures, so you know when to interfere, and when not to." --Sub-Commander T'Pol on Rigel X, Star Trek: Enterprise, "Broken Bow"
The latest example comes in an interview with Kathyrn Joyce on Fresh Air about her new book The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption. The book explores the booming "adoption" industry around the world that's been created by the huge demand for children by evangelical Christian parents in the United States.
It all starts with evangelical leaders coming to believe that they had a PR problem. The public perceived them as merely being against everything -- anti-abortion, anti-gay, and so forth. Evangelicals felt that the wider public was losing sight of the role that "good works" played in Christianity. So along comes a religious mission to adopt children from developing countries, fueled by the belief that the adopted children would be saved twice: first by having a home with better living conditions and second by being introduced to the Gospel.
And thus was born an international web of deceit, frauds, scams, misinformation, perverse incentives, trafficking in children, and "adoptions" that amount to borderline kidnapping. In one case discussed by the author, a young evangelical couple decided to adopt three sisters from Ethiopia. An adoption "agency", motivated by the huge amount of money involved, presented the sisters as children of a mother who had died of AIDS and a father who was sick with AIDS. The couple was told that the father would soon die and that the young sisters would be forced into prostitution.
As it turns out, the sisters were well cared for and were children of a man who worked for the Ethiopian government and wasn't sick at all. The father was actually a part of the Ethiopian middle class and very much a part of his daughters' lives. Furthermore, the agency had told him that "adoption" was merely a sort of extended study abroad program where the sisters could live in the US and get an education that would enable them to return to Ethiopia and help their family.
In many developing countries, there is no notion of adoption as a permanent transfer of parental rights as it's thought of in the US. Instead, adoption is thought of as more of a guardianship.
When the couple went to meet the three Ethiopian sisters and found that they were well-dressed and older than the agency said, they got suspicious and did some investigating. They even managed to get in touch with the father, compare notes on what the agency had said, and learn that the father had no desire or reason to give up his children. Incredibly, the evangelical couple went through with the adoption anyway.
Later in the interview with Ms. Joyce, we learn that a legal loophole means that adoption agencies aren't legally liable for giving false information to prospective evangelical parents. Wait, what was that? Not legally liable? It seems like they should be criminally prosecuted for such scams.
The reason that this particular couple was trying to adopt from Ethiopia was that Ethiopia is the current "hot spot" for crooked agencies and traffickers to use as a source of children. The previous "hot spot" had been Guatemala and the situation got so bad there that the government shut the whole racket down.
So perhaps it's now easier to see things through the eyes of the Russians, who are making an effort to put a stop to their children being adopted by US parents.
And as for evangelical Christians, perhaps this should be a cautionary tale on the need to actually learn about other cultures before rushing in to convert them to another way of thinking. That way, evangelicals could form a real understanding of the people and needs of other countries so as to be in a better position to do actual good.
But I'm not holding my breath for the arrogant bastards to learn such a simple lesson.
"Humans can't refrain from drawing conclusions. You should learn to understand other cultures, so you know when to interfere, and when not to." --Sub-Commander T'Pol on Rigel X, Star Trek: Enterprise, "Broken Bow"