6688: Buying a child is easy in a dotcom world (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: nozier <nozier@tradewind.net>

 Buying a child is easy in a dotcom world By JONATHON ESTE  19jan01
AUSTRALIAN NEWS NETWORK

 FOR Sale: Daniel, aged 7, from  Haiti.

Daniel likes to play with toy  cars and is keen on soccer but  he is one
of eight children and   his 42-year-old mother's  extreme poverty has
forced her to list him for adoption on the  internet. As outrage sweeps
the globe over American mother Tranda  Wecker, who tried to sell her
twins to three different couples  through an internet adoption  agency,
The Australian experienced little difficulty yesterday in  finding
similar children available to the highest internet bidder.
 Daniel is one of literally thousands of children from around the world
who are bought and sold through online adoption services.  He has a
brother and sister also on adoption agency Precious In His Sight's
books, but they don't have to be adopted together.
  If you need time to think it over, you can reserve Daniel for the
nominal fee of US$3500 ($6360) down and a monthly child-care   payment
of US$505.
  Type the key word "adoption" into any web browser and within a few
clicks of a mouse you are presented with a bewildering array of
children from a wide selection of countries at a price to suit every
pocket.  If you believe the number of hits these websites profess to
take, thousands of couples are using this method to find and adopt
 children from around the world.
 Most of the sites are for agencies based in the US, where there is a
flourishing trade in adoption from the Third World, Latin America and
eastern Europe. Newly established markets in recently war-torn countries
such as Cambodia are also flourishing.
 The sites almost invariably insist they are non-profit organisations
They will look after the legal formalities and immigration paperwork
for a fee – Adoptions International Inc charges a flat agency fee of
$US3500.
   Having decided on a Russian infant, for example, you will then be
expected to travel there at least once to complete the formalities. The
agency looks after this side of things as well, booking travel and
organising visas. The whole process will take about six months in the
case of a child from eastern Europe, while adopting from China and
South-East Asia generally takes a lot longer.  Third World children tend
to come a bit cheaper than those from Western countries. You can get a
Chinese baby for as little as    $US16,000, half the price of a white
American baby.  Prices also tend to drop as the child gets older or
according to any disabilities he or she may have. It's not just
childless couples who use these sites. If you've got a  baby you can't –
or don't want – to keep, you can go to  www.adopt-usa.org which puts
birth mothers in touch with "waiting      parents".