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Reader responses to
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Research sources
In related news
Country by country:
reports from around
the world
Site map: adoption
Corruption in international adoptions
NEW!
Orphaned or Stolen?
The U.S. State Dept.
investigates adoption
from Nepal, 2006-2008
"Anatomy of an Adoption Crisis," ForeignPolicy.com, September 12, 2010
- Map: Geography of an Adoption Crisis
- Experts respond
to "Anatomy of an
Adoption Crisis"
- Primary sources: U.S. government documents, 2007-2008 (obtained via Freedom of Information Act)
- Startling quotes from released documents
- By province: References to adoption problems
- Denying an orphan visa: USCIS appeals
- Visa denied: The story of one family
- U.S.-VN Memorandum of Agreement, 2005
- U.S. Department of State: Vietnam adoption notices
- Licensed adoption agencies listed by province, 2006-2008
- Adoption agencies licensed to work in Vietnam, 2006-2008
"The Baby Business," Democracy Journal, Summer 2010
- "The Baby Business"
with footnotes - Experts respond
to "The Baby Business" - Policy proposals for
fairer international
adoption practice - Key documents:
Hague regulation - Specific regulation changes
- Cash required: Bad practice
"The Lie We Love," Foreign Policy magazine, Nov./Dec. 2008
- “Where do babies come from?”: country-by-country map of reported adoption irregularities
- "The Orphan Trade: A look at families affected by corrupt international adoptions," Slate.com,
May 8, 2009 - "The Adoption Underworld," The Washington Post,
Jan. 11, 2009- "The orphan manufacturing chain," The Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2009
- "Out of Cambodia," The Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2009
- Awards for "The Lie We Love"
Commentary:
- "Adopting new standards on adoption," "Comment is Free," Guardian.co.uk, Sept. 10, 2010.
- "Preventing Adoption Disasters," The Boston Globe, April 17, 2010.
- The New York Times "Room for Debate": "Haiti's Children and the Adoption Question," with commentary by E.J. Graff and other prominent experts, Feb. 1, 2010.
- "The Seamier Side of International Adoption,"
The New York Times Opinion Blog, May 10, 2009. - "The problem with saving the world's 'orphans'," The Boston Globe,
Dec. 11, 2008.
- “Where do babies come from?”: country-by-country map of reported adoption irregularities
- Map: Geography of an Adoption Crisis
- Experts respond to
"Anatomy of an Adoption Crisis"
- Experts respond
to "The Baby Business" - Reader responses
to "The Baby Business" - Reader responses to
"The Lie We Love" - The orphan myth:
Responses to criticisms
Country by country: adoption corruption reports from around the world:
- ALBANIA
- ARMENIA
- BELARUS
- CAMBODIA
- CAMEROON
- CHAD
- CHINA
- COLOMBIA<
- CONGO
- EL SALVADOR
- ETHIOPIA
- GUATEMALA
- HAITI
- HONDURAS
- INDIA
- INDONESIA
- KENYA
- KYRGYZSTAN
- LIBERIA
- MARSHALL ISLANDS
- MEXICO
- MOLDOVA
- MOZAMBIQUE
- NEPAL
- NIGERIA
- PARAGUAY
- PERU
- PHILIPPINES
- POLAND
- ROMANIA
- RUSSIA
- SAMOA
- SIERRA LEONE
- SWAZILAND
- UGANDA
- UKRAINE
- VIETNAM
Student Research Assistants' Contributions
Photos in collage above
left: From left:
Girl © Eugene La Pia
Bogota buildings
© David Garzen | sxc.hu
Photo above:
Rural Colombia
© Eugene La Pia
News Reports of Adoption
Irregularities in Colombia
Below are some news articles compiled by the Schuster Institute about adoptions from Colombia.
“Baby Trafficking Ring Operates in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Israel,” November 30, 2003, InsideCostaRica.com.An Israeli citizen who manages a Costa Rica adoption agency faces an INTERPOL detention order as a suspect in the trafficking and kidnapping of babies as well as the murder of one child in his care who died from lack of medical attention in Colombia.
Rolf Salomón Levy Berger, also known as Rafael Leyva or Rafael Levy, founded the International Adoption Resources Foundation in Costa Rica to facilitate international adoptions despite the fact that he was not certified to do so. This same agency has offices in Boca Raton, Florida, where Levy is the “international coordinator”.
Levy, who resides in Miami Beach, Florida, faces a Colombian arrest warrant for illegal actions between the year 2000 and 2002. In the INTERPOL report, he also is accused of the theft of babies.
“Ring in Columbia Kidnaps Children for Sale Abroad,” Warren Hoge, August 16, 1981, The New York Times.
The authorities have uncovered a multimillion dollar international ring in which hundreds of poor Andean children were kidnapped or bought from their mothers and sold under forged birth certificates and adoption papers to childless couples from the United States and Europe.
NOTE: This page from the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism website offers documentation of and background about serious irregularities in international adoption. For the systemic analysis of corruption in international adoption, please read “The Lie We Love,” Foreign Policy magazine, Nov./Dec. 2008, and visit our webpages dedicated to international adoption. For ideas about fairer policy solutions, please read “The Baby Business,” Democracy Journal, Summer 2010.
© 2008-2011 Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02454. All rights reserved.
Last page update: February 22, 2011