Week 2 Blended Activity by veera

| Cambodia’s Stolen Babies
Makara Svay gave birth to her third child, a girl, in an abandoned box car behind Phnom Penh railway station in May 2002. Deserted by the child’s father, the pretty 23-year-old could not afford a midwife and relied on neighbours to help with the delivery. “I nearly died giving 4birth,” she remembers. Her newborn daughter was small and malnourished. The pair were still weak one month later when a Cambodian woman in her 30s came and introduced herself as Madame Prum. She told the young mother, “You are very poor. You do not have food for your child. Maybe she will die. I will adopt your child. I will take care of her.” When Prum promised Svay she could see her baby in the future, it seemed like an offer the unschooled peasant girl could not refuse. To formalise the arrangement, Prum asked Svay to put her thumbprint on an official-looking document. Unable to read or write, she did as she was told. In return, Prum gave her $18, a 50 kilogram sack of rice worth $15 and a phone number. “If you want to see your baby, just call me,” she smiled. When Svay called the number the following month, a gruff-voiced man answered. “He was rude,” she says, her eyes misting over. Then the line went dead. Intimidated and distraught, Svay did not call again. She now wonders if her child was falsely labelled an orphan and sold for adoption overseas. She has no way of finding out and no likelihood of ever seeing her daughter again. “I am alone, and I have nothing in my life. I am an empty shell.” she sobs. It is suspected that there are hundreds more victims like Makara Svay in Cambodia, whereby poor and vulnerable young mothers duped into parting with their newborns to feed a lucrative international trade in babies. Law enforcement and human rights investigators say that the adoption racket has operated for about a decade and is worth millions of dollars. Cambodian government figures show that, since 1995, around 2000 Cambodian infants have been adopted. Though no one knows how many overseas adoptions were legitimate and how many involved buying and selling children, a 2003 report by the Dutch embassy in Bangkok concluded that child trafficking cases that have been exposed are “the tip of the iceberg.” It is estimated that Americans have adopted at least 800 Cambodian children, including some who were bought and sold. Some were probably treated badly in the process. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who visited orphanages and “stash houses,” where children were kept waiting for adoption, described conditions as horrendous,with naked, filthy babies, hammocks covered in faeces, rusty cribs, torn window screens and the stink of human excrement . The adoption racket is driven by wealthy Westerners eager to acquire cute Asian infants, by unscrupulous adoption agents and orphanages ready to supply them at a price and by corrupt government officials willing to approve fabricated documents for bribes. In Cambodia, many children categorised as orphans actually have living parents, and almost anyone with sufficient cash can buy a child. Most Western couples want young and healthy babies. Some choose their child before arriving in Cambodia. According to the Dutch embassy report, some orphanages have posted photos and doctored histories on the Internet to attract prospective parents. Adoption petitions and foreign visa applications routinely describe the children as abandoned, birth parents unknown. Yet, in some cases they are not abandoned and the birth family is known. Almost always a child’s identity, birthplace and family background are falsified. Many village chiefs are happy to sign a sham declaration for as little as $10. Because of the adoption racket, hundreds of children have lost their true identity forever. Birth parents cannot trace their offspring or find out what became of them. Meanwhile, thousands of unwanted orphans, in poor health, unappealing or past their sell-by date, suffer in institutions. | 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50