For the children

Ah, yes, another example of international adoption working in the best interests of the children, I see.

"Locals unwelcome at Chinese orphanages: Agencies favour overseas adoptions"

"Chinese policies are supposed to favour domestic adoptions. Yet there is strong evidence that foreigners get preferential treatment -- largely because their payments are more lucrative. Despite the national policy, many Chinese orphanages have set up unofficial barriers to discourage Chinese families from adopting their orphans."

"Partly because of the barriers to domestic adoptions, China has a thriving system of private and unofficial adoptions, including an underground system of kidnapping and baby-trafficking. Earlier this year, China admitted that six orphanages in southern China had been purchasing babies since 2002, including the purchase of 78 abducted children last year alone. At least 33 people were punished for their involvement in the schemes. Foreigners and Chinese families were adopting children from the six orphanages, often for hefty fees."

An older article from the Washington Post, long but worth reading 'til the end ...

"Stealing Babies for Adoption: With U.S. Couples Eager to Adopt, Some Infants Are Abducted and Sold in China"

Some quotes:

"The prevalence of the problem has become clearer in recent weeks with the prosecution of a child-trafficking ring in the neighboring province of Hunan. Last November, police arrested 27 members of a ring that since 2002 had abducted or purchased as many as 1,000 children here in Guangdong province and sold them to orphanages in Hunan for $400 to $538.... The orphanages placed most of those children in homes with unwitting foreign families, many of them Americans, in exchange for mandatory contributions of $3,000 per baby -- a sum nearly twice the average annual Chinese income -- according to sources familiar with the prosecution."

"A state agency in Beijing, the China Center of Adoption Affairs, pairs prospective adoptive families with available Chinese children. Foreigners who want to adopt must work through a foreign agency certified by the CCAA. The process entails many fees, the largest paid as parents depart the province in which they adopt: They surrender $3,000 in cash, typically in $100 bills, and usually into the hands of the orphanage director."

"Such is the system absorbing the proceeds from foreign adoptions. Whole industries have sprouted to service the people involved. Travel agencies ferry adopting foreign families to sightseeing spots in Beijing, then on to the provinces handling the adoptions. Playrooms occupy space at five-star hotels in cities that have become hubs for adoptions, their lobbies often packed with foreigners carrying Chinese babies. Around the White Swan hotel in Guangzhou, the city through which every family must pass to receive a U.S. visa for a child, streets are thick with stroller-rental shops and silk baby outfits embossed with traditional Chinese logos. The hotel gives each adopting family a special doll manufactured by Mattel -- "Going Home Barbie," the iconic plastic figure carrying a Chinese baby."

My god, we're talking about babies here -- human beings being abducted, stolen, kidnapped, snatched away from their families and not "abandoned" -- who are being bought and sold like any other commodity for purchase on the market.

I find the final quote by an AP just as sickening: "If we can't bring closure to it, we're just going to have to live with it." (Or, "We're going to hand over our $3,000 cash and get our babies while we can.")

Updated (8/1/06): Not anything new or suprising ...

Found the headline below on the Korea Herald Web site but need to subscribe to access, so here's a link to the article on the Daum site:

"Volunteers brighten orphans' days"

"Fowler, an English teacher from the United States, has been promoting volunteering and adoption of Korean orphans since 1995. One of the biggest problems, he says, is that orphanages do not encourage adoptions as they get more funding with the more children they have."

"If you look through the orphanage system, you will see that much of the money being donated by the banking, business and private communities is being spent on nothing more that the private needs of the founders, owners and their children," he says, adding that less than 40 percent of donated funds are spent directly on the children."

MTV K and adoption

The MTV K Web site has a news segment on Asian-American adoptees with interviews with some adoptees and adoptive parents.

(The folks at MTV K might want to do a little more research -- they said that the first wave of Asian adoptees came in the '80s. WRONG!)

"My goal is world peace"

I'm all for Miss Korea to kick some adhesive-stuck bathing suit butt in the Miss Universe pageant, but except for Jane Pauley's early beauty pageant stint, I really can't picture female TV presenters in the U.S. who want to be the country's "greatest anchorwoman" competing in a beauty pageant.

"SBS Anchor Dons Bikini for Miss Universe Pageant"

The pageant will be on NBC Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Pacific time. (I love the list of telecast judges.)

I gotta say, Miss Korea's national costume beats the crap out of Miss USA's.

Who needs men

In my current foul mood, I was happy to read this article on artificial sperm ...

"First live births from artificial sperm"

KAD in the news

The Star Tribune has an article on stand-up comedian Amy Anderson ...

"Korean adoptee breaks new ground in stand-up comedy"