Disappearance of newborn babies for illegal adoption in Europe

The trafficking of babies from the Ukraine was already a fact in 1995. Ten years later, in 2005, the Council of Europe requested an investigation to clarify if babies were still declared stillborn, but in reality sold for adoption.

The fact-finding mission of Ms. Ms Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold brought heart-breaking stories and confirmed all suspicion.

In a recent interview Ms. Vermot-Mangold gives harrowing examples of how mothers were fooled by doctors and made to believe their babies were stillborn. She believes it likely that those children ended up for intercountry adoptions, as this market exists since long,

Her investigations in Moldova showed different practices: strong pressures is put on poor and/or single mothers to leave their child in an orphanage, most likely for reasons of intercountry adoption as mothers who later reclaim their child do that in vain. Also newspaper advertisements can be found in Moldova, in which women are incited to sell their babies for 3.000 euros.

Ms. Vermot-Mangold goes on to say that trafficking in babies also exists in Bulgaria, but that Romania is at the moment less concerned as it has banned intercountry adoptions.

This is an important conclusion, as it is indeed the existing adoption market that triggers the sale of children. Before Romania closed intercountry adoptions the same issues as in Ukraine, Moldova existed: babies declared dead at birth, mothers incited to abandon children.

However, Ms. Vermot-Mangold is not of the opinion that a ban on adoptions is appropriate, without saying why not, but that stricter rules are needed and that adoptions need to be done through adoption agencies which strictly control the procedure.

However, those who read Romania for Export Only know that adoption agencies are part of the problem, not the solution.

But now the most amazing part.

On 24 January the Council of Europe’s General Assemblee discussed Ms. Vermot-Mangold’s findings and presented a draft Recommendation ‘Disappearance of newborn babies for illegal adoption in Europe’.

Read the mind-boggling press release in which the Council of Europe announces their view on how to prevent the sale of children:

By stricter rules, in particular for post adoption monitoring...
but that’s not where the problem exists: it is how children are 'freed' for adoption where things go very wrong.

And what about the press release's catchy title? Stricter rules, no:

Assembly calls for easing of adoption rules