The adoption industry has such quaint terminology for the import and export of children via adoption.

Countries that primarily export children are labeled “sending countries.” Whereas countries where importing is the predominant mode are labeled “receiving countries.”

The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University has done a wonderful interactive map visually explaining such. (Please explore, country by country).

Where do babies come from….   …and where do they go?

The United States is largely an importer of other people’s children in inter-country adoptions. Yet as of late, the American import numbers, mirroring much of the U.S. economic downturn are nearing a six year low.

The number of U.S. foreign adoptions is near a six-year low due to greater barriers overseas and fewer orphans coming from a wealthier China, U.S. Special Adviser for Children’s Issues Susan Jacobs said.

Total adoptions to the U.S. fell last year to 12,753 and will “be somewhere in that ballpark” in 2010, Jacobs said in a telephone interview. “Domestic adoptions in China are on the rise and international adoptions are taking longer, so it’s harder to adopt there.”

Over the next decade, Ethiopia is set to surpass China as the biggest source of U.S. adoptions. The number of children adopted annually from Asia’s biggest economy has dropped to 3,000 from 7,900 over the past five years, State Department figures show. There were 2,277 Ethiopian children placed in American homes in 2009 compared with 442 in 2005, the data show.

After peaking in 2004, total U.S. adoptions began to drop as standards became more stringent and applications from countries such as Vietnam and Guatemala were suspended amid allegations of corruption and fraud. Processing adoptions from Nepal were the latest to be put on hold this year.

Adoptions from Russia, about 10 percent of the U.S. total, also declined. Russian authorities had threatened to suspend adoptions by U.S. citizens after the case earlier this year of a 7-year-old boy who was sent back alone to Moscow by his adoptive American mother.

This year’s numbers are due to be released later on this month.

The 2004 peak of 22,990 has now been nearly cut in half over the past six years.

This has left the adoption industry scrambling, consolidating, engaging in scams and fraud, and pushing “bargain basement” adoptions from African countries such as Ethiopia and Uganda, essentially a “two for the price of one” steal compared to prices from before the adoption market crash.

Yet even as  U.S. importation of children continues to make headlines and would be adopters jockey for position over what children are still available (yes, even as the industry works to manufacture “orphans” to meet that market demand) there still remains an unspoken other aspect of the American adoption market, the open secret that a small number of children are also exported from the U.S. each year for adoptions abroad.

It’s rare to find articles mentioning the child exports, but every so often you get lucky, all the more so in light of the perfect graphic that accompanies this short piece.

These outflow adoptions came to a total of 51 kids adopted by parents overseas in 2008-09.

Of that 65%, or 33 kids originated in Florida (“special needs” children were not included in the tally.)

The vast majority of the exported kids have landed into adoptions in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has also been feeling the pinch as Chinese adoptions become more rare.

Map: Jeff Papa

I don’t have a lot to say right now.

Tomas is bearing down on Haiti and while it’s not the absolute worst case scenario, even a Tropical Storm or Cat 1 stands to be horrible enough.

This is going to be bad.

Haiti’s million plus living under tarps and in tents face the additional pressure of potential forced evictions and having nowhere to return to if they do try to leave what little they now have.

The rains have already begun and will only get worse on into the night.

• Haiti camps face dilemma as storm approaches: Stay and face possible floods, or risk eviction
• Tropical storm Tomas taking torrential rains to Haiti
• Panic grips Haiti refugee camps as million people are told to evacuate before tropical storm strikes
• Chaos for Haiti Refugees as Tropical Storm Looms
• Tomas increases landslide risk in Haiti
• Tropical Storm Tomas Strengthening, Satellite Images Show

This in addition to the ongoing cholera outbreak

Haiti cholera deaths rise sharply as storm threatens

Health officials say 105 more people have died since Saturday, bringing the total to 442. They said there had been a 40% jump in the number of new cases.

The optimism of the team leader from the US Centers for Disease Control may be vastly premature, though considering reports such as this still coming in:

Report of Overwhelmed Hospital in St Marc

Not that access to things like clean water or medical care were all that simple to begin with.

HAITI: Unarmed in the fight against cholera

Meanwhile, U.S. promised aid monies remain stalled,

Another obstacle stalls $1.15B in US aid for Haiti

The storm is coming, just as so many of us feared it would.

It’s going to be a very difficult night.

There are plenty of sources to get updates from, but here at least is an overview of the areas covered by the Hurricane warnings.

Coastal Watches and Warnings via NOAA:

These two links represent some very thoughtful analysis, placing adoption into it’s rightful broader context in relation to power, closed door secrecy, and well monied corporate interests.

First up, Bastardette has done a strong piece that isn’t about adoption except when it is:

Columbus Issue 12: Secrets = “More Information” (Not about adoption, but it is)

Every so often she’ll write a post that dances between the microcosm and the macrocosm, and this is a fine example.

In it, she writes about the efforts  to keep the Columbus, Ohio city council meetings open to the public. Tragically, in part due to the deceptive language on the measure, it passed creating a blind spot to Ohio’s sunshine laws just large enough to hold closed door secret meetings behind.

While on the face of it, this may appear to be nothing more than a local political matter, she ties the micro back up to the macro, bringing it back around to visibility into government and process, adoption secrecy, and how sunshine laws have another blind spot exception that we Bastards know all too well, the adoption exceptions. Our sealed records are ultimately not so very different from other forms of closed door secrecy.

Far from the watchful eyes of the public, behind those closed doors are where the deals are cut, be they purely political, or be they the crimes covered over and protected by state mandated adoption secrecy. Deprived of  access to the evidence, the very paperwork pertaining to our very lives, we too, are simply left in the dark, told to “trust them, they know what they’re doing” and accept whatever we are told unquestioningly.

In all a good read, and much fodder for thought in the piece.

What’s happening in Columbus public meetings today is not unlike what’s happening in adoption deform. Special money and special interests locking out those most affected. Secret making and secret keeping for “your own good.” Convoluted language. A willing, clueless public that wants to believe that the government has our or your best interests at heart. We are not fighting in a vacuum. Corruption and big money are all around us, and we need to keep exposing it and ridiculing it, and killing it. We have few friends and the public doesn’t care as long as it’s lied to and taken care of.

Secondly, be sure to click across to Niels’ latest over on Pound Pup Legacy:

The adoption industry and politics, an incestuous embrace

Rather than even attempting to pull a quote or two out of it, I strongly urge readers to read the entire piece.

Some time back I wrote a brief introduction to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute Angels in Adoption awards in the course of writing an introduction to this year’s Demons of Adoption awards.

Niels’ piece, on the other hand cuts to the essential nature of the event and the “incestuous copulation of industry and politics under the pretext of the well-being of children.”

He shines the rare light of day on the interelationship of both policy makers and their multitudes of corporate lobbying lovers.

Again, please read the entire piece, it should be a foundational document core to any genuine understanding of the event and the players involved.

Alright, so it being “National Adoption Awareness Month,” the adoption  industry wants to utilize kids in Foster Care as a ‘justification’ to do their month long adoption marketing spree, often centered on infant adoption or inter-country adoption.

Fine, you wanna talk foster kids?

Let’s talk about some of the realities foster kids face, such as having their credit scores decimated before they can even turn 18 and age out onto the streets.

This piece is out of Wisconsin, but the problem is nationwide, with several states just staring to pass laws in an attempt to begin to tackle the problem.

See-

12 News Discovers Foster Children Targets Of Identity Thieves: 2 Sisters Find They Can’t Get Credit

WISN 12 News discovered their credit has been ruined by those who are supposed to protect them.

Wisconsin officials don’t know how widespread the problem is because they’ve never checked.

In print, 18-year-old Jazmin Holt owns a house and a car. In real life, she can’t get a credit card.

Again, this is a direct  result of people who legally had access to their information. The girls had no ability to protect their own interests or their information as it was gathered as a result of them being in the foster care system.

Now adults, Jazmin and Lakeitha are trying to make their own ways. Jazmin’s trying to raise her baby, Ilyya.

“I have a We Energies bill that’s about $3,000. I don’t have the foggiest idea how I got that. I can’t even get the lights in my house I just moved into in my name,” Jazmin Holt said.

And Lakeitha Holt put her college plans on hold. It’s hard to get student loans with a bankruptcy on her record.

“These are kids that are wards of the state for all intents and purposes. We are supposed to protect them,” state Sen. Lena Taylor said.

Wisconsin doesn’t track identity theft problem among foster kids. Taylor said she’s pressed the issue with Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families but has seen no move to protect foster kids’ credit.

“We have a responsibility, for at least the children who are the wards of the state, to at least check and to do something,” Taylor said.

Be sure to also see the Web Extra: State Sen. Lena Taylor Talks About Foster Children Finding Their Credit Destroyed.

It’s a betrayal of some of the most vulnerable, and by and large, most bureaucrats and politicians seem to feel it’s simply not their problem, not that these kids have anywhere else to turn.

For nearly two months, 12 News has tried to interview the man who oversees the state’s foster care system, but DCF Secretary Reggie Bicha declined to take questions.

Everyone tosses around the buzz word “accountability” but when it comes to this system genuinely being made accountable to the kids themselves?

Forget it.

As foster kids have always known, when it comes to the system being responsive to them?

More often than not it’s a policy of yoyo, “you’re on your own.”

First a quick Blogkeeping note:

In light of my blogging marathon last month and other writing I’m working on, BLC the blog is going to be somewhat quieter this month and my posts probably far shorter.

That said, we’re now in the thick of the dreaded month long adoption marketing extravaganza known as “National Adoption Awareness Month” (what some term Adoption Beware-ness month,) and as readers know,  in the face of industry propaganda I’m hardly one to hold my tongue.

So rest assured, there will be some posts this month but many will be short and to the point. I’ve no doubt plenty of other Bastards and (original) parents will be going into writing overdrive, so be sure to spend some of this month listening.

As has become an annual custom over the past several years, Pound Pup Legacy has offered up an appropriate kick off to this month’s festivities in the form of the Demons of Adoption Awards.

As I blogged last month when voting began this time around, all the nominees were certainly worthy of the award in their own right, but when the voting had finally concluded, one rose to the top of the pack for the sheer cravenness of its “demonic” activities.

This year’s winner is of course, (drumroll please…)

the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS.)

See the official Pound Pup Legacy announcement:

Joint Council on International Children’s Services recipient of Demons of Adoption Awards 2010

(Though it should be noted, LDS Family Services lost this year by mere votes, running neck and neck until the very end.)

Be sure to read the full Pound Pup Legacy profile piece, as the profile is a very well written recap of just what it is that makes JCICS so very worthy of the award and the attention.

I can think of other forms of attention they and their member agencies should also be afforded, perhaps by law enforcement and congressional committees, but not surprisingly such are hardly the sorts of attention they might enjoy.

For now they should simply sleep better at night knowing that a number of the “little bundles of joy” their industry “re-homed”, along with other voters such as Mothers, felt them worthy enough to expend their one and only vote upon.

Understanding that they engender such deep feelings from the people on the receiving end of their work should mean a great deal to them.

As JCICS no doubt knows, it takes lots of hard work to become loathed enough to reach the top of a pile of Demons like this year’s candidates. After all, it isn’t every organization that can lay claim to having been voted more “Demonic” in the adoption realm than the Mormon church!

Pound Pup Legacy has also done us all a great service in that rather than spread across the various blogs and down in people’s individual posts, PPL has begun a central repository of the names of adoptees who have been abused and killed by their adopters in the past year.

The repository is named “Rohnor’s Angels 2010” in honor of  Christian Rohnor who

may have been the first documented case of lethal abuse in an adoptive family

(At least here in America in the modern period.)

On September 28, 1854. the New York Times ran an article with the title: Murder of an Adopted Child in New-Orleans, describing the abuse and subsequent death of Christian Rohnor, a two-year-old boy, adopted by a couple from New Orleans. Christian Rohnor was locked up in the attic, starved to the point of being completely emaciated, and eventually beaten to death by his adoptive father.

Those of you who know me know I have little use for either demons or angels in terms of a political lexicon relating to these matters. But as these particular “demons” come out at the end of October each year, I’m willing to enjoy their purely metaphoric value.

As for “angels,” again, I’m not particularly enamored of such mythical concepts, but in this case, particularly as I understand what metaphorical content Pound Pup Legacy is trying to instill in a broader audience, I’m willing to accept such language from a purely pragmatic perspective.

On a more personal note though, having spent time in cemeteries around N’awlins (and taken my camera along for the trip, resulting in pix like this)  I’m willing to utilize such on the basis of both their artistic merit and cultural symbolic value.

The tragic roll is made up of five names so far this year:

Rohnor’s Angels 2010:

Colin David Jones: Killed,  Christmas Eve 2009, Loganville, Georgia
Lydia Schatz: Tortured to death, February 6, 2010, Paradise, California
Tristan Dosdall: Beaten to death, March 24, 2010, Peyton, Colorado
Collin Parker William Holdgrafer: Drowned, June 12, 2010, Andrew, Iowa
Kairissa XingJing Mark: Beaten to death, July 1, 2010, Mount Juliet, Tennessee

Be sure to visit the page over time and explore the links to the individual children’s stories.

Sadly if there’s any one thing those of us in this field have learned to count on, it’s that lists like this have a terrible tendency to grow over time.

So let us vow to remember these young victims on this, el Dia de los Muertos.

(Yes, two posts in one day. Please be sure to scroll down to see my post from earlier.)

I did it!

Somehow, I managed that magickal 31 posts in 31 days that constitutes (at whatever time of year) National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo.

November of course, being traditional, but instead of running head to head with much of the adoption hullabaloo that hits each and every November, coupled with the uptick in people who tackle the challenge each November, I wanted to get out in front of that train wreck and spend my October posting like there’s no tomorrow (except of course, there is a tomorrow and then you have to post all over again!)

If September was, as I termed it my “Silent September,” October may as well be termed my “Outraged October.”

Looking back over these posts and the subject matter I chose to work with, it should be clear enough, outrage is a perfectly justified response.

Unlike most NaBloPoMo participants, I didn’t want to add myself to the monthly blogroll until I had actually completed the month’s worth of posts.

In any case here’s my index of links to my posts for the month.

October 2010

1. Silent September
2. Louisiana refuses to recognize out of state adoption by Gay couple, boy left in web of legal uncertainty
3. Rejected under Illinois’ new adoptee birth certificate “access” law? Not allowed to register in the IARMIE?
4. Meanwhile, in Haiti…
5. Vote now for the 4th annual Demons in Adoption Awards
6. Adoptive Columbine tragedy: rescued 6 yr old Adopted Boy “severely malnourished” and abused
7. OH Supreme Court rules re: the putative Fathers registry & Wyrembek seeking custody of “Grayson”
8. “Foster-adopt” as a case study in the problems of adoption language & information hiding (BBBP part 1)
9. When discussing Foster-Adopt, these are some Foster realities to bear in mind (BBBP part 2)
10. Federal bonus bucks to the states for moving kids out of foster into adoptions (regardless of the damage)
11. Perhaps as many as one third of Adoptions in Wales end in disruptions/”breakdowns”
12. Ethiopia, riddled with fraud, surging towards #1 destination for US adopters to collect kids
13. After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails
14. Florida, Queer Adoptions, and the reek of George A. Rekers & a cast of cronies
15. Florida Queer Adoptions Post follow up, some theory, and some clarifications
16. First Nations peoples’ fight for their kids brought to the Iowa Commission on Native American Affairs
17. In-Vitro Fertilization, “Snowflakes,” and the growing Christian Eugenic movement
18. A compilation of Mississippi legalized child abandonment cases and “safe haven” failures
19. Americans demand the “pipeline” cases be rammed through, despite the Guatemalan adoption climate
20. Western Australia (WA) “apology” not a “start,” it’s being used as a substitute for genuine justice
21. More Aboriginal kids in child-welfare in Canada now than at the height of the “residential schools”
22. Haiti. Cholera.
23. Disappearing Adoptee rights in India, now you see ‘em, now you don’t
24. Queer adoptions in Florida: Attorney General Bill McCollum decides… not this time around
25. Costa Rica to legalize in vitro fertilization, human rights, lack thereof, and some contemplations
26. Olivia Pratten’s suit to end second class citizenship for Canadian donor conceived individuals
27. Emily Portellos, crimes against “women’s essentialist nature,” and the pointlessness of imprisonment
28. Haitian child trafficking to the Dominican Republic- “the trafficking of minors has skyrocketed”
29. Tomorrow the ballot for the Fourth annual Demons of Adoption Awards closes
30. Ethiopia- LDS Bishop & Village of Hope co-founder charged with 47 felonies for sexual abuse of adoptees & minors
31. Mississippi 2010 “safe haven”/legalized child abandonment law failures to date

(Obviously, this constitutes a second post on 31rst, but I didn’t feel it was appropriate to use the recap as my post for today. All the more so in that until I got the Mississippi post up, I still had that promised post hanging over my head and didn’t want to carry it over into next month.)

Now as my month’s worth of getting a post a day up draws to a close, looking back I see both a body of work and how this month was perhaps a bit unusual in that roughly a full third of my posts were internationally focused. (More often than not, my posts were driven by events as they were unfolding.)

My blog has always had a global focus, but even I was a bit surprised.

As I wind down, Bastardette on the other hand, is just about start her attempt at another month’s worth of posts.

Bastardette’s NaBloPoMo effort last year, (when she truly wrote out that DAILY Bastardette-ness) was somewhat of an inspiration to me in getting piece after piece written.

I described her work last year as a voice of sanity in the midst of the otherwise simply dreadful adopto-obsessed November. (As November rather than October tends to be the month out of the year Bastards and parents find all the true horrors of adoption come to life.)

So this past November, The Daily Bastardette pulling 30 blogs in 30 days was just a bit like sitting down with a cup of coffee and opening the paper each morning used to be (back in the age when ‘Dinosaurs roamed the earth’ and ‘news was actually printed on a thing called “paper” and was delivered daily to one’s abode.)

The Daily Bastardette this past November served as the perfect anecdote to the nonstop cotton candy sticky sweetness of the all-marketing-all-the-time National Adoption Month.

She’s already written a post about her NaBloPoMo ramp up to this year’s effort, National Adoption Awareness Month is Just Around the Corner!

It’s fun in a grueling sort of way. Like running a marathon.

Precisely.

In that spirit, I glad pass the baton that she might take the next leg of the journey on her blog.

Or, perhaps keeping more in spirit with some of the fun and humour intrinsic to a number of her posts:

Tag! You’re it!

Earlier this month I blogged several posts using Mississippi as a case study in relation to the ongoing failures of the legalized child abandonment schemes.

The so called “baby Moses” or “safe haven” laws were passed nationwide on the assurances of those advocating legalized child abandonment that unsafe child abandonments and the number of dead babies would decrease, if not stop altogether.  Now having more than a decades’ worth of a track record we see nothing could be farther from the truth.

Now with each new neonatacide or unsafe child abandonment instead of acknowleging the inherent failures of their law,  their tune has changed, insisting that these failures are mere byproducts of a “lack of educational effort” and demanding new monies be allocated to produce promotional materials, that legalized child abandonment advocates should be brought into school classrooms, and free media time be granted to their program such that women might be better taught their notion of a” best way” to abandon their children.

The human and civil rights consequences to the children who are processed through such schemes and the health concerns of their mothers are almost systematically disregarded and all too often treated as irrelevant.

In two of the cases I’m about to detail, where the mothers have been identified, they have been fortunate to receive both medical and mental health care. But had they not entered the system, as we’ll see in the third case, no follow up medical support for the mother has been possible. The baby dump laws place women in a very similar position, whereby they bring the child in, but may or may not receive any post-birth giving medical or counseling care themselves, let alone any legal counseling regarding the lifelong decision they are about to make, or counsel regarding what forms of support, financial or otherwise she may be entitled to.

So by way of follow up to my two pieces from earlier this month:

• After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails
• A compilation of Mississippi legalized child abandonment cases and “safe haven” failures

I offer a few links about the three cases I’ve found from 2010 that pertain to the law, and it’s failures. As I summarized:

the (at least) three cases I’ll be working with will be those of:

• Linda Nash who stabbed her newborn to death. The baby was born at home; Linda says she didn’t know she was pregnant.  She’s a Type 2 diabetic, and an adoptee.
• the dead baby found in a suitcase earlier this summer
• and this latest child abandonment of a (live) child left at a Salvation Army donation drop off, outside the legalized child abandonment system

Of these three, they amount to two cases of neonatacide and one case of an illegal child abandonment  not in a designated drop point.

So I’ll begin with the tragic case of Linda Nash, (age 16.)

As I summarized, her child was born at home in Linda’s adoptive parents home. She claims to have been unaware she was pregnant at the time.

Her trial included testimony about her having been a type 2 diabetic and how such may have affected her thought process. After giving birth, she “freaked out” and stabbed the newborn to death in a panic as her adoptive mother banged on the locked bathroom door. Her parents took her to the police.

She was sentenced to the minimum amount of prison time required under Mississippi law in part due to the “mitigating circumstances” at the center of the case, Among them the revelation of the identity of the newborn’s father: her 14-year-old brother, Lewis

The Panolian search on Linda Nash provides a number of articles, I’ll include one or two below but this is the link to the full set:

http://www.panolian.com/v2/content.aspx?&MemberID=1180&module=Page&ID=481&SiteSearch=1

* WMCTV, February 1, 2010

Mississippi teen charged with stabbing newborn daughter to death

http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=11915033

* Fox Memphis, February 1, 2010

Teen Mom Arrested for Murdering Newborn

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/020110-teen-mom-arrested-for-murdering-newborn

* myeyewitnessnews.com, February 2, 2010

Mississippi Teen Charged with Murdering Newborn

http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story/Mississippi-Teen-Charged-with-Murdering-Newborn/GeMB2qS6HEilkQKh3VWhtA.cspx

* wmctv February 2, 2010

Batesville reacts in shock to murder of newborn baby

http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=11921567

* News 3, February 3, 2010

Experts Work To Help Teen Parents Avoid Abusing Their New Born Babies

http://www.wreg.com/wreg-help-for-teens-story,0,1237091.story

* The Mississippi Link, February 5, 2010

Teen mom stabs newborn to death

http://www.mississippilink.com/news/article_9e55e72c-1278-11df-87a7-001cc4c03286.html

* The Mississippi Link August 25, 2010

Teen who stabbed newborn will go to trial

http://www.mississippilink.com/news/article_e33d2956-b005-11df-83b4-001cc4c03286.html

* Fox Memphis, Setember 17, 2010

Teen Takes Reduced Charge in Baby’s Death

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/091710-teen-strikes-plea-deal-in-baby’s-death

* The Panolian, September 21, 2010

Prosecutor: mother killed newborn boy with scissors

http://www.panolian.com/v2/content.aspx?module=ContentItem&ID=188626&MemberID=1180

* Fox News, Oct 1, 2010

Linda Nash, Teen Convicted of Killing Newborn, Will Serve Prison Time

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/100110-linda-nash,-teen-convicted-of-killing-newborn,-will-serve-prison-time

* The Panolian, October 5, 2010

Nash: I stabbed newborn while ‘freaked out,’ scared

http://www.panolian.com/v2/content.aspx?module=ContentItem&ID=189717&MemberID=1180

Moving on to the second case from Mississippi this year, in early July, Sheila Ealey, 41 gave birth to boy at home with no medical assistance, and then within 24 hours wrapped the live child,  the umbilical cord still attached, in a garbage bag, wrapped a blanket around it and placed it in a suitcase which was left behind her local church.

The suitcase was discovered while clearing weeds around the property. Her pregnancy had been hidden. She was already a single mother to five other children. When the body was discovered, she turned herself in.

Sheriff: Baby Found In Suitcase Was Born Alive At Home

A baby boy that was found dead in a suitcase last week was born alive, Madison County Sheriff Toby Trowbridge said on Tuesday.

The newborn was found Friday afternoon in a garbage bag, wrapped in a blanket, inside the suitcase, behind the Smith Chapel Baptist Church in the 300 block of Livingston Vernon Road in Flora, the sheriff said.

Sheila Ealey is charged with murder in connection with the boy’s death, Trowbridge said. She surrendered to authorities Friday night, he said.

Additional articles and video segments:

* WAPT.com, July 2, 2010

Woman Charged After Baby Found Dead In Suitcase

http://www.wapt.com/news/24127982/detail.html

* my601.com July 5, 2010

Flora Woman In Connection With Dead Baby In Church Graveyard Charged With Murder

http://www.my601.com/news/state/story/Dead-baby-suitcase-church/5-gFrPDCtkqbS1CAtEPjtQ.cspx

* WAPT.com July 6, 2010

Sheriff: Baby Found In Suitcase Was Born Alive At Home

http://www.wapt.com/r/24159059/detail.html

* WLBT.com, July 6, 2010

Ealey expected to appear in court Tuesday

http://www.wlbt.com/global/story.asp?s=12759037

* my601.com July 6, 2010

Family of Flora Mother Charged with Infant’s Murder: “We’re Shocked”

http://www.my601.com/mostpopular/story/Family-of-Flora-Mother-Charged-with-Infants/FN_MMpybMkqiDTpnUiBr4Q.cspx

* wjtv.com July 7, 2010

Grand Jury to Soon Hear Case of Mother Accused of Killing Infant Son

http://www2.wjtv.com/jtv/news/local/article/grand_jury_to_soon_hear_case_of_mother_accused_of_killing

_infant_son/166493/

* my 601.com July 8, 2010

$35K Bond Set for Flora Woman Accused in Baby’s Murder

http://www.my601.com/mostpopular/story/35K-Bond-Set-for-Flora-Woman-Accused-in-Babys/8fZMMlfjVkmNylg87NMLWg.cspx

* WAPT.com July 8,2010

Woman Charged In Baby’s Death Released On $35K Bond

http://www.wapt.com/r/24181335/detail.html

* WAPT.com July 9, 2010 (This piece is little more than a commercial for Bethany Christian Services, an adoption agency, but naturally, they’re happy to capitalize on the case.)

Ealey’s Situation More Common Than You May Think

http://www.wapt.com/video/24195842/detail.html

* (Also see Parents of newborn sought from October 14, 2010 that provides a slight recap at the bottom of the article.)

I’m still working to see if I can find any additional online coverage of the case after July.

Photo: Justin Lewis, WTVA

Finally, we come to the case from earlier this month of a (live) less than week old Hispanic baby left off at an unattended Salvation Army donation station wrapped up and strapped into a car seat that I blogged about at the time, see my post After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails.

A hospital, which would have been a legal authorized “safe haven” site was less than a mile away. The child has been placed with a foster family.

* WCBI.com October 13, 2010

Baby Found Abandoned in Houston; Mother Sought

http://wcbi.com/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1286983508&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2,40&

* WTVA October 13, 2010

Baby found at door of Salvation Army

http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/Baby-found-at-door-of-Salvation-Army/Znx8eUfTREOa8bVbUFUDdw.cspx

* WTVA October 13, 2010

Abandoned newborn found in Houston

http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/Abandoned-newborn-found-in-Houston/r8WhEkZukkWpwB2huFHRGg.cspx

* Hattiesburg American October 13, 2010

Baby left at Salvation Army site in Mississippi

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20101013/NEWS01/101013015/Baby-left-at-Salvation-Army-site-in-Mississippi

* myfoxmemphis, October 13, 2010

Baby Left at Salvation Army Site In Miss.

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/101310-baby-left-at-salvation-army-site-in-miss.

*The Clarion Ledger, October 14, 2010

Parents of newborn sought

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101014/NEWS/10140358/Parents-of-newborn-sought

* nems360.c0m October 14, 2010

Baby abandoned at Salvation Army in Houston

http://nems360.com/bookmark/9895145

*AP October 14, 2010

Baby left at Salvation Army site in Miss.

http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/news/2010/oct/14/baby-left-salvation-army-site-miss/

* The Clarion Ledger October 14, 2010

Abandoned Mississippi baby’s parents not found

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101014/NEWS/101014020/Abandoned-Mississippi-baby-s-parents-not-found&template=artsemantics&server=MOC-WN0484

* The Calhoun County Journal

Parents of abandoned baby in Houston being sought

http://www.calhouncountyjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3190:parents-of-abandoned-baby-in-houston-being-sought&catid=1:latest-news

To date, I see nothing to suggest the child’s parents have been identified. If they are found, the mother at least may face felony charges.

We can only hope she’s alright after having given birth in secret. Odds are, we’ll simply never know.

None of these three cases represent good outcomes for either the women or their children.

As I wrote in Emily Portellos, crimes against “women’s essentialist nature,” and the pointlessness of imprisonment:

…we as a society need to do better by them.

Lon Kennard Sr. (pool, Salt Lake Tribune)

Village of  Hope orphanage co-founder Lon Harvey Kennard, Sr. faces charges on 47 felony counts  stemming from his alleged sexual abuse of children he and his wife adopted from Ethiopia, other teenaged female relatives and a final unrelated teenage girl in Ethiopia.

The potential crimes first came to light last March, see Ethiopia orphanage co-founder charged in sex abuse case.

The charges filed in state court Tuesday allege the 68-year-old Kennard sexually abused 2 of his adoptive daughters, who are now adults.

Kennard is co-founder of the Village of Hope orphanage in Ethiopia. In the early 1990s, Kennard and his wife adopted six children from Ethiopia.

Charging documents allege the abuse went on from 1995 to 2002.

Also see this report from late March, Charity co-founder charged with multiple counts of child sex abuse:

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

The orphanage was founded by the Kennards with a partner in 1994.

As the webpage for the Village of Hope project explains, the Kennards became interested in the area during the process of adopting several of the Ethiopian children:

The Kennard Family adopted six children from Ethiopia. Four of those children were from the small village of Kersa Illala, about a 4 hour drive south of the capital city of Addis.

Noting the “abject poverty prevalent in Kersa Illala and throughout Ethiopia” as well as the vulnerability of both women and children there, the Kennards and their partner set up their program, giving Lon an opportunity to surround himself with children.

What is readily apparent even from the webpage is that inter-country adoption is very core to the “Village” particularly for very young, and easily marketed children.

While the webpage contradicts itself both claims no direct involvement in the adoption process, AND claiming to “assist” agencies, it does clearly advocate adoption whenever possible, stating flatly “many can be adopted”:

As appropriate, Village of Hope works with local and international adoption agencies to assist in finding permanent homes for HRCC children. …

…If the children are newborns or toddlers, many can be adopted. If the children are over 4 years of age, adoption is often not an option and Village of Hope must either find them a surrogate Ethiopian family, or be prepared to be the family of these children itself, until the kids are raised to maturity and ready to be independent, self-sufficient adults.

His wife filed for divorce within days of the charges being handed down. See this most recent piece, Alleged child sex abuser told to hire attorney in the Salt Lake Tribune.

DeAnna Kennard filed for divorce March 26, three days after Lon Kennard was charged with 47 felonies involving children the couple adopted in Ethiopia. The Kennards, who have six biological children, helped found the Village of Hope orphanage in the east African country and subsequently adopted six youngsters there.

The article also contains a break down of the charges:

Lon Kennard is charged with 25 first-degree felony counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child, 21 second-degree felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child, and one count of third-degree felony witness tampering.

This copy of a Salt Lake Tribune article on an external site contains a few more details, Founder of Ethiopian Children’s Charity charged with sexual abuse of 6 Ethiopian children in U.S. court

According to court documents, the abuse was ongoing between 1995 and 2002. During that time frame, Kennard served as a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bishop.

Naturally, back in Utah, the Kennards were viewed as doing nothing short of ‘god’s work’ and were featured in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune before what the girls had endured finally came to light:

…they began investigating humanitarian organizations and programs. They came across Choice Humanitarian, a West Jordan-based nonprofit organization that seeks to end poverty in small communities by providing water, sanitation and skills. Choice Humanitarian’s Tim Evans helped the Kennards focus on an approach.

Lon and DeAnna determined they could make such an effort in the small village and set up their own nonprofit organization to raise funds.

As the “Founder…” article went on to detail:

In April 2009, The Salt Lake Tribune wrote a story featuring the endeavor.

But on March 6 one of Kennard’s adoptive daughters called authorities to report that she and a sister were victims of sexual abuse “many times over many years,” according to a probable cause statement from the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office.

An adoptive son found nude pictures and videos on Kennard’s computer and made copies, the statement said. On March 7, according to the statement, authorities were provided with 31 photographs and videos that investigators allege constitute child pornography involving one of the daughters beginning at age 14 and another 14-year-old girl.

Other family members told investigators they, too, had been abused by Kennard, according to the probable cause statement.No charges have been filed in connection with those allegations.

Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the Village of Hope motto “Love is spoken here.”

That same day in another article, see Bail denied for Lon Kennard Sr., founder of Heber charity, the charges had expanded to now relate to six female relatives and a seventh unrelated teenage girl from Ethiopia.

In court documents, Kennard is accused of sexually abusing six female relatives and a seventh teenage girl who is not a relative. He is also accused of producing videos that documented some of the alleged abuse.

The article goes on to provide further details and a listing of some of the locales Village of Hope works within (emphasis added):

The allegations against Kennard came to light on March 6, when a female relative contacted a Wasatch County sheriff’s deputy to ask if Kennard was a suspect in a child sex abuse investigation. The woman told the deputy that Kennard’s son had shown her videos of Kennard engaging in sexual contact with an underage girl. The son told detectives he had found the videos on an external computer hard drive that his father kept in his locked home office.

Detectives interviewed six women related to Kennard and each described “individual, personalized accounts of being sexually abused” by Kennard, according to court records. Investigators also believe Kennard sexually abused a seventh victim, who is not related to him, and made videos of the abuse. Court records say the girl is from Ethiopia and is 17 or 18 years old.

The sexual abuse outlined in court records allegedly began in 1995, around the time Kennard was serving as bishop of his LDS Church ward and one year after he and his wife founded Village of Hope. The nonprofit organization provides “development programs for destitute villages” in Mexico, Central America, Ethiopia and the Caribbean.

To date, the charges only involve a single unrelated girl from Ethiopia. As to whether or not he was abusing any of the other kids back in Ethiopia remains an unanswered question.

All the more so when you see quotes such as this from before the revelations (emphasis added):

“Now the villagers tell me, ‘Water is life, dad, water is life,’ ” Lon explained.

It certainly raises questions as to precisely what his role with the vulnerable young women of the “Village” entailed.

This article, Heber charity founder Lon Kennard Sr. charged with years of sexual abuse, provides a little more:

On March 6, a female relative of Kennard’s contacted a deputy to ask if Kennard was a suspect in a child sex abuse investigation. The woman told the deputy that Kennard’s son had shown her videos of Kennard engaging in sexual contact with an underage girl.

The son told detectives he had found the videos on an external computer hard drive that his father kept in his locked home office. The son said he had gone looking for evidence of sexual abuse after someone told him that Kennard was molesting a female relative, court records state.

Deputies seized Kennard’s home computer and “several” external computer hard drives. Wasatch County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Jared Rigby said those drives and the computer are undergoing a full forensic examination. A preliminary review of digital files on those drives, however, revealed 31 videos showing Kennard having sexual contact with two teenage girls, court records state.

Detectives said they interviewed six women related to Kennard and each “related individual, personalized accounts of being sexually abused” by Kennard, according to court records. Investigators also believe Kennard sexually abused a seventh victim, who is not related to him, and made videos of the abuse. Court records say the girl is from Ethiopia and is 17 or 18 years old.

It also discusses his having seperated from Village of Hope in 2009 before the scandal broke, makes mention of a new organization he founded, and a very specific reason as to why the court should (and did) consider him a flight risk:

Village of Hope president Daniel Alger told the Deseret News that Kennard and his wife left the group in August 2009. Kennard’s Facebook profile lists a second organization, Love One Another, that he launched in 2009. It apparently focuses on social and economic issues in east Africa.

Kennard remains in the Wasatch County Jail. His bail is expected to be set Wednesday, when he makes his first court appearance. Investigators, however, have argued that Kennard poses a flight risk. They point to his frequent travels to Africa and his purchase more than a year ago of a home there without his family’s knowledge as grounds to deny him bail.

As the only charges so far only involve his own adopted children, relatives, and a single unrelated girl, it remains an open question whether or not additional abuse was taking place with any of the other kids back in Ethiopia.

Having  (allegedly at least) secretly put down roots in terms of buying a house there, a house supposedly kept a secret from his own family that is, it should be deeply concerning in that it could provide both a physical space under his control and potentially a space apart from the curious gaze of others.

Considering Lon’s track record of how he apparently behaved with Ethiopian children he was ‘being family to’ there are certainly more than enough reasons for concern.

This report from July 15th  Charity co-founder pleads not guilty in abuse case contradicts the earlier report, claiming the incidents have been as recent as this year:

The alleged incidents in the case date as far back as 1995 and continue through this year.

Court records say detectives interviewed six women related to Kennard and each gave accounts of sexual abuse. Investigators also believe Kennard sexually abused a seventh victim not related to him.

The Pound Pup Legacy profile page on Village of Hope – Ethiopia provides links to several additional articles.

Finally, here is a promotional video for the Village of Hope by way of the Salt Lake Tribune created prior to the story breaking.

The adoption open marketplace that Ethiopia ( now well on it’s way to becoming the number one destination for American would-be-adopters) has provided a wide open landscape for monsters like Kennard to play in. No one gave a second thought to this man with his arms draped around black children.

Nope, individuals, corporations, and the Mormon church itself gave the project grant monies and praised his efforts. The Salt Lake Tribune did a profile piece on his efforts, putting him forward as a picture perfect adopter and role model to be emulated.

Anyone who thinks he has been the only one in the midst of this adoption racket (redundant, I know) who has been “enjoying” his times abroad and easy access to kids and desperate mothers should think again.

Please forgive the extremely brief post tonight.

This may actually be my shortest post ever (I’ll work on making up for it tomorrow!)

Get out the Vote! Last chance.

As I blogged earlier this month, Vote now for the 4th annual Demons in Adoption Awards.

Ballot and candidates can still be found here.

The Miami Herald has done an important investigative series concerning the ease with which Haitian children have been smuggled across the border into the Dominican Republic in the wake of the earthquake.

While the reports focus on the porous border in terms of child trafficking for purposes of house slave or shoe shine boy labor, begging, or prostitution, once the kids have been taken across the border and simply have no documentation, they can be moved essentially at will.

Be certain to see the videos that go with the reports.

• Trafficking, sexual exploitation of Haitian children in the Dominican Republic on the rise 10/23
• Dominican street offers brazen come-ons 10/23
• It’s heartbreaking to see how easy it is to buy a child 10/24
• Exclusive investigation: Guards cash in on smuggling Haitian children 10/26
• Left on road, in the bushes 10/27
• How one little girl made it from 1 side to the other 10/27
• How series was reported and numbers tallied 10/27
• MP3- Child trafficking problem grows in wake of Haiti quake

Adoption-wise of course it will be very interesting/potentially heartbreaking to see how this plays out.

To date the Dominican Republic has seen very few American adoptions, only 181 since 1999. The highest number in a single year was 25 adoptions in 2007.

See the U.S. State Department Dominican Republic adoptions page–

The 2010 numbers should be in line, if they’re not, a close examination would be in order.

The Dominican Republic is a Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption signatory nation so the convention forms the framework under which adoptions take place. But as I’ve written previously, the Hague Convention does little if anything to prevent trafficking, and the Council on Accreditation, the non-profit regulatory duties have been outsourced to not only has a fundamental conflict of interest, but is utterly toothless and ill equipped to investigate much of anything.

One thing that may actually be serving to keep Dominican Republic adoption numbers down is that it is a nation with a residency requirement for would-be-adopters.

This of course, was the underlying rationale behind Laura Silby’s New Life Children’s Refuge planned revamp of the hotel into “Seaside Villas at Playa Magante” as an adoption tourism destination.

All of which certainly raises the question of just how connected to child traffickers Silsby and the New Lifers were at the time.

Their association with Jorge Torres/Jorge Puello has always left the door open to those unanswered questions. (See both my previous posts on Puello and Marley Greiner’s posts pertaining to him on her End Child Exportation and Trafficking in Haiti blog.)

Time will tell whether other such “villas” for would-be-adopters sprout in the Dominican Republic or not.

Beyond the idea of the Dominican Republic as a potential adoption destination, though, lies the much more difficult question; what happens if/when paperfree children are exported from the Domincan Republic and end up somewhere else, now remarketed as “orphans” for adoption from a more hospitable “sending country” without strict residency requirements?

When a pool of children this bought and sold and paperfree becomes available, where do they turn up next?