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Child Laundering And The Hague Convention On Intercountry Adoption: The Future And Past Of Intercountry Adoption, David M. Smolin
Child Laundering And The Hague Convention On Intercountry Adoption: The Future And Past Of Intercountry Adoption, David M. Smolin
David M. Smolin
The United States ratification of the 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption became effective April 1, 2008, amidst a context of declining numbers of intercountry adoptions and increasing media attention to corruption and child trafficking in the intercountry adoption system. There is a need to sort out the connections between these events, and chart a course for the future. This article includes an extensive discussion of the work of preparation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. The article demonstrates that concerns with child trafficking in the intercountry adoption system were a central impetus to the creation of the Convention. …
Child Laundering As Exploitation: Applying Anti-Trafficking Norms To Intercountry Adoption Under The Coming Hague Regime, David M. Smolin
Child Laundering As Exploitation: Applying Anti-Trafficking Norms To Intercountry Adoption Under The Coming Hague Regime, David M. Smolin
David M. Smolin
Child laundering occurs when children are illicitly obtained by fraud, force, or funds, and then processed through false paperwork into "orphans" and then adoptees. Child laundering thus involves illegally obtaining children by abduction or purchase for purposes of adoption. My prior work has documented and analyzed the widespread existence of child laundering in the intercountry adoption system. This article argues that child laundering is a form of exploitation, and hence qualifies as a form of human trafficking. Once child laundering is understood as an exploitative form of child trafficking, legal and ethical norms currently applied to human trafficking become applicable. …
Child Laundering: How The Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes And Incentivizes The Practices Of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, And Stealing Children, David M. Smolin
David M. Smolin
This article documents and analyzes a substantial incidence of "child laundering" within the intercountry adoption system. Child laundering occurs when children are taken illegally from birth families through child buying or kidnapping, and then "laundered" through the adoption system as "orphans" and then "adoptees." The article then proposes reforms to the intercountry adoption system that could substantially reduce the incidence of child laundering.
The Two Faces Of Intercountry Adoption: The Significance Of The Indian Adoption Scandals, David M. Smolin
The Two Faces Of Intercountry Adoption: The Significance Of The Indian Adoption Scandals, David M. Smolin
David M. Smolin
This article summarizes international law, and the law of India and the United States, relevant to intercountry adoption. The article then presents extensive information and analysis of a major series of adoption scandals in Andhra Pradesh, India. The article uses this analysis of law and a major series of adoption scandals to present the "two sides of intercountry adoption:" positively, as a humanitarian act, and negatively as a form of child trafficking. The weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the intercountry adoption system that led to the Indian adoption scandals are extensively analyzed.