What's the difference between adopting vs buying a child from another country?

Question

For example: In Guatemala, all the money you have to pay goes mainly in the pocket of an attorney,agency and the person that finds children to fill your demand. It doesn't cost 20,000-70,000.00 to file paperwork especially there where the wages are astronomically low. Is turning your back or ignoring the corruption ,like 80 attorneys being under investigation for kidnapping and for using children as breeders, considered acceptable as long as you don't hear about from your christian adoption agency. Where do you draw the line as far as taking responsiblity when you adopt (contribute) to the corruption. Is "good faith" in an agency a reasonable excuse when the lives of other human beings are involved especially children. Would that be an acceptable excuse for someone that kidnapped your child and put them up for adoption? Where do you draw the line between the two?

Answer 1

As an IA mom, I am certainly not going to judge anyone who adopted from Guatemala and I don't know enough about their process to comment, however, with regards to China: the majority of the money (at least in Canada) goes to the Canadian adoption agency and to our own government. The government paperwork alone, coupled with SW fees and agency fees, plus medicals and police clearances came to approx. $17,000 (plus, you have to redo your paperwork every year, and the fees start over again).

China, in fact, sees very little of the money. The $5,000 (recently raised) orphanage donation fee is hardly an incentive for child trafficking as the cost to make babies "paper ready" for international adoption is very high, which is also why the number of children released to IA is quite low compared to the number of children actually languishing in China's orphanages. That money is "supposed" to go to support the children left behind. I am not 100% comfy in that is actually happening, but I hope that it is.

As hard as it is to get our hearts around, adoption is a business and there are fees and wages. From social workers to government aids and so on, these people do not work for free and therefore fees need to be paid. PAPs are paying people's wages essentially who are performing a service, they are not, in fact, purchasing a child.

Again, as far as China is concerned, these children have been in the orphanage for at least a year (sometimes a lot longer). If China was looking for some quick cash, they would be ferrying these children overseas a lot quicker than a year.

It's the North American agencies that make out like bandits as they retain most of the money and if for any reason the adoption did not go through, you would not see one red dime of that money back. Also, the Canadian agencies at least have zero say over the goings-on at the CCAA, so it is not like the money the agencies received allows them to push the CCAA around and make them find more babies. Babies or no babies, the agencies get to keep their money.

Answer 2

Legality.

We're allowed to buy and sell 'unwanted' babies all we like, different nationatliy for each season.