The Internet is known for having its "dark corners" that you're better off staying far away from, but while some things on the Internet are best being ignored, this isn't one of them.
It's called "private re-homing," a sinister online market uncovered during an 18-month investigation by Reuters, which found that parents have been advertising their adopted children online to find them a new home—all without any legal oversight whatsoever. Of the children they found being advertised during the investigation, 70-percent of them were from overseas, and at least one, sadly, ended up in the hands of a child pornographer. The parents are using "power of attorney," which is usually used to sign over a child for a temporary amount of time, say, to a relative if a parent has to stay in the hospital. "Power of attorney" is now being abused to transfer over a child's custody to, often times, complete strangers, without lawyers or social workers ever being involved.
In regards to adoption, it can be very costly to re-home a child after adopting them if things don't work out as planned, and the options of finding a new home for the child are few. Reuters found that many of the children were violent upon ariving to their new home, which caused the parents to become stressed and frustrated. Though, many of the parents simply didn't want to raise the child anymore. One couple listed a their child with the description, "we do not believe we can provide the full attention that she needs and deserves." The child is only eight years old, and the couple had her for only five days before deciding to post her online.
Another message disgusting listed a child as being attractive: "Born in October of 2000 – this handsome boy, 'Rick' was placed from India a year ago and is obedient and eager to please."
The Internet is a reflection of society...
Eager to please. Sickening.
Couples such as this one have gone to Yahoo! message boards or have created Facebook groups. Yahoo! removed one message board after Reuters told them about the activity there. Facebook, reportedly, declined to remove their group, which is called Way Stations of Love. A Facebook spokeswoman told Reuters, "the Internet is a reflection of society, and people are using it for all kinds of communications and to tackle all sorts of problems, including very complicated issues such as this one."
Hopefully the NSA is hot on this one.
Reuters has posted two parts of this on-going five part series.
