Should This Even Be Legal?
At least one child is offered up for adoption on online forums every week. “Rehoming” is the term used for this action. In 2013 an international news agency, Reuters, did a study that shows this has been taking place for at least five years on forums such as Yahoo’s group Adoption-From-Disruption and Facebook’s group Way Stations of Love (Twohey). Even now, in 2018, these actions are still taking place. These children are usually originally adopted from overseas and very little about their new families are looked into. While there are cases in which a good home is found for them, there are also many cases where the new family is abusive to the children. Some people are in support of the practice and say that it takes children out of homes where they could be potentially abused, but at what cost? Without regulations that are actually upheld, most children are being taken out of potentially abusive homes only to be put into actively abusive homes. Laws should be enacted that make sure the new families are stable and loving instead of just letting children be transferred from person to person without even so much as a background check. And with these actions taking place online, it only furthers the possibility for the person to unknowingly give that child to a corrupt home.
In many cases, the children adopted on these forums were later abused or neglected. In the Reuters investigation, they found that at least 28 children had prior histories of physical abuse, 14 with histories of sexual abuse, and 10 with histories of both (Twohey). The station, WKYC, interviewed two women, Miko LeeAnn Stepleton Watkins and Nita Dittenbur. Both of these women were moved around to different homes through online networks. Miko stated this about how she was treated while at a home in Tennessee with 17 other children:
“We were starved – there were locks and chains on the fridge and the cabinets, we couldn’t get into any of the food, and if we were caught trying to eat food, we were forced to throw it up and then eat our own throw-up,” Miko recalled. “We were forced to dig our own graves,” Miko added. “We were told that no one wanted us, no one knew we were there, all we had to do was dig a hole and she could throw dirt on top and be done with us” (Cantergiani).
Like Miko, Nita didn’t escape the horrors of online adoptions either. After being adopted at the age of 13 her parents felt she was not a good fit and put her on an online message board with other children that were being traded. Nita stated how she felt; “I was just out there like nobody loved me,” Nita said. “I was passed around to whoever wanted me” (Cantergiani). Looking into these people’s stories and knowing that they are just two of the multiple cases of this act going wrong, it is hard to believe that there are supporters.
These people find that the use of online forums is a great way to find parents for the adopted child they no longer wish to have. One woman who goes by the name, Rebecca from Fosterhood, even went to the lengths to create a blog. This blog entitled, Why I supported the adoption “rehoming” group that Yahoo and Reuters shut down, lists her reasoning for her support.
Nice, decent Americans work really hard to adopt lovely, older kids from various countries. Adoptive parents get in over their heads when lovely, older kids display lots of difficult, and often times unsafe, behaviors. They fear losing their minds, their tempers, their jobs, or their other children. Adoptive parents seek help and support anywhere and everywhere they can. As a last resort, adoptive parents try finding a safer living environment for their adopted child and put out an SOS on a private, Yahoo group that has vetted membership. Finally, she states, parents have avoided turning the adopted child over to a group home, putting the child on a plane back to their country of origin, or abusing them to death (Rebecca).
She is not alone when it comes to supporting this action. Although her reasons are more sensitive and well thought out in how they are stated, there is one woman who went on record with more of a blunt statement. After she adopted four kids from Ethiopia one of the children didn’t seem to be working out. He began having personal issues and she felt that, for the safety of her other children, it would be best to find him another home. After turning to a Facebook group she went on to defend “… listing him on the site; “Just posting and saying ‘Hey do you want my kids?’ I don’t think that’s appropriate but you know sometimes when you’re desperate and looking for somebody who might be the right person for your child – sometimes you’ve just got to put it out there,” she said (Smith).”
Although I can see where these women are coming from, wanting a better life for their child and finding no other way but to look to social media sites to find a solution, I still can’t believe that they trusted this way to make their child’s life happier. Even just having the knowledge that people can lie about who they are on the internet should have been enough for them to rethink using Facebook as a last resort. And seeing as this has been going on well before 2013, I would believe that they were able to see the countless news articles and media on the horror stories that were brought up do to the rehoming. Finally, if they truly wanted the best for the child that they adopted first, wouldn’t they have tried harder to find a more reliable way. Maybe this is how we come to the conclusion that something needs to be done. Perhaps looking more into the laws that are already in place, but not fully acted upon, will help in creating a final solution to this dilemma.
For instance, looking into the Wisconsin law might help us in furthering a better future for children. This law makes it “illegal for anyone not licensed by the state to advertise a child over age one for adoption or any other custody transfer, both in print and online.” Although I do not see this law as disabling people from being able to place children on these sites, I do find that it is at least a step closer in the right direction. If laws like this were placed nationwide then that would be a wonderful start to abolishing this terrible act for good. Even Republican state Rep. Joel Kleefisch hopes this law will create a change. “With virtually no oversight, children could literally be traded from home to home. In Wisconsin, that is now against the law. Hopefully citizens of the country will follow our lead” (Twohey, Wisconsin…).
The article, Orphan Fever: the dark side of international adoption, states how the laws vary in each state and how many of them only require the signature of a legal guardian to transfer custody to another adult. And with this, they don’t even need to notify the government officials. The article even states how it “creates a dangerous avenue for predators to easily obtain vulnerable children from desperate parents” (Townsend). The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) is supposed to stop the signing of one piece of paper from being the only paperwork needed if the child is moving over state lines. Both the new and old adoptive parents are required to notify officials in both states if the child is moving to a new state. However, due to the fact most authorities do not even know about the ICPC, the compact is rarely enforced (Twohey). Looking to the people already creating a way to end this issue is just a start to creating a final law to end it altogether. The final thing that should be done is raising awareness on this issue. Facebook and other social networking sites can place adds to catch the attention of people who are looking to this site. This might also help in keeping away the people who create the pages for placing these children up for adoption, or even scare them away, due to the fact that it would be known that they are being looked for.
While some people believe rehoming can be beneficial to parents who cannot continue care of children they have adopted, there are still no proper regulations or authorities that uphold the few laws that are in effect. With so many forms of social media, there is no way to eradicate the online ads for children. Therefore, lawmakers need to come up with nationwide laws to help regulate the rehoming of these children. Social media should not be a way to find a loving and caring home for a child. These children have no say in where they are going. Give them the respect they deserve and create a way to safely and legally find them a caring home.
Works Cited
Cantergiani, Chris, and Tom Meyer. “Rehoming: How Parents Are Trading Kids in an Underground Network.” 26 April 2018. WCNC. Web. 29 July 2018.
Rebecca. “Why I Supported the Adoption ‘Rehoming’ Group That Yahoo and Reuters Shut Down.” 18 Nov. 2016. Babble. Web. 30 July 2018.
Smith, Mike. “The Adopted Children Being given Away on Facebook.” 19 March 2015. Channel 4 News. Web 29 July 2018.
Townsend, Marlee. “Orphan Fever: The Dark Side of International Adoption.” 13 March 2018. UAB Institute for Human Rights Blog. Web. 29 July 2018.
Twohey, Megan. “Americans use the Internet to abandon children adopted from overseas.” 9 September 2013. Reuters Investigates. Web. 29 July 2018.
Twohey, Megan. “Wisconsin Passes Law To Stop The ‘Re-Homing’ Of Adopted Children.” 7 December 2017. The Huffington Post. Web 2 August 2018.