LilMtnCbn
08-31-2004, 07:45 AM
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=1380
Trafficking in children for would-be foreign parents
Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) – Trafficking in children, fraud and corruption are
undermining the adoption process in Cambodia, this according to the Cambodian
League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO), a Phnom
Penh-based NGO.
The League recently released information showing how traffickers acquire
children destined for the international adoption market. Their investigation
illustrates how middlemen approach poor women promising them large sums of
money and well-paying jobs if they hand their children over on a “temporary
basis” to child welfare centres.
According to the information middlemen tied to adoption agencies pay on average
US for a newborn and US-100 for older children so that they can be resold to
foreign couples for sums ranging from US00 to 20000. At times, middlemen take
children by force.
Father Alberto Caccaro, PIME missioner in Phnom Penh, corroborated these
dramatic findings to AsiaNews. “It’s true, trafficking in minors is a
widespread practice in the country.” To confirm it, Father Caccaro said he
had recently visited a woman living with AIDS who after leaving the hospital
found that one of her three daughters was missing. An aunt had sent her
daughter “to work” in Malaysia and has not be heard from ever since. It is
likely that the girl was sold or set to work as a prostitute.
In 2001 the US stopped adoptions from Cambodia to curb trafficking. France, the
Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium followed suit in 2002. The United Kingdom
suspended all adoptions in June of this year after discovering a scam in fake
official adoption papers.
Blocking adoptions cannot however solve the problem on its own said Father
Caccaro for whom it has much deeper roots. “We must ask ourselves why western
families want to buy a child. Children are a gift, but having children is too
often seen as a right that can be bought” he said. “In Phnom Penh’s big
hotels it is possible to see foreign couples, sometimes gay couples, who a few
days after arriving in town leave with a child.”
Selling children is a sign of a profound malaise in Cambodian society, Father
Caccaro believes. “Notions such as ‘lawfulness’ and ‘respect for human
life’ have shallow roots in Buddhist Cambodia. In such a poor society (almost
one in two Cambodians lives with US a day) selling or prostituting children is
seen as a normal way of surviving,” he added.
For Children’s rights experts the Cambodian government must fix the
legislative framework that governs adoptions. In June 2000 Cambodia’s Prime
Minister Hun Sen did halt adoptions after it became known that some middlemen
were buying children from parents. The following year the government followed
up by adopting a decree regulating adoptions. Never the less, the country still
lacks specific legislation in this area.
Between 1998 and 2003 Cambodian authorities approved 2,303 foreign adoptions.
(MA)
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Trafficking in children for would-be foreign parents
Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) – Trafficking in children, fraud and corruption are
undermining the adoption process in Cambodia, this according to the Cambodian
League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO), a Phnom
Penh-based NGO.
The League recently released information showing how traffickers acquire
children destined for the international adoption market. Their investigation
illustrates how middlemen approach poor women promising them large sums of
money and well-paying jobs if they hand their children over on a “temporary
basis” to child welfare centres.
According to the information middlemen tied to adoption agencies pay on average
US for a newborn and US-100 for older children so that they can be resold to
foreign couples for sums ranging from US00 to 20000. At times, middlemen take
children by force.
Father Alberto Caccaro, PIME missioner in Phnom Penh, corroborated these
dramatic findings to AsiaNews. “It’s true, trafficking in minors is a
widespread practice in the country.” To confirm it, Father Caccaro said he
had recently visited a woman living with AIDS who after leaving the hospital
found that one of her three daughters was missing. An aunt had sent her
daughter “to work” in Malaysia and has not be heard from ever since. It is
likely that the girl was sold or set to work as a prostitute.
In 2001 the US stopped adoptions from Cambodia to curb trafficking. France, the
Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium followed suit in 2002. The United Kingdom
suspended all adoptions in June of this year after discovering a scam in fake
official adoption papers.
Blocking adoptions cannot however solve the problem on its own said Father
Caccaro for whom it has much deeper roots. “We must ask ourselves why western
families want to buy a child. Children are a gift, but having children is too
often seen as a right that can be bought” he said. “In Phnom Penh’s big
hotels it is possible to see foreign couples, sometimes gay couples, who a few
days after arriving in town leave with a child.”
Selling children is a sign of a profound malaise in Cambodian society, Father
Caccaro believes. “Notions such as ‘lawfulness’ and ‘respect for human
life’ have shallow roots in Buddhist Cambodia. In such a poor society (almost
one in two Cambodians lives with US a day) selling or prostituting children is
seen as a normal way of surviving,” he added.
For Children’s rights experts the Cambodian government must fix the
legislative framework that governs adoptions. In June 2000 Cambodia’s Prime
Minister Hun Sen did halt adoptions after it became known that some middlemen
were buying children from parents. The following year the government followed
up by adopting a decree regulating adoptions. Never the less, the country still
lacks specific legislation in this area.
Between 1998 and 2003 Cambodian authorities approved 2,303 foreign adoptions.
(MA)
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
