According to a Sept. 25 article by Richard Foot of Canwest News Service, a Canadian mother is worried that her adopted daughter may have been kidnapped from her birth parents:

"I'm very, very scared," says Cathy Wagner, who wants the federal government to stop all Canadian adoptions from China until fears about the true origins of orphans there can be properly investigated.

This week the Los Angeles Times published explosive evidence that Chinese babies, particularly those in rural villages, had been kidnapped from their parents and sold to orphanages by corrupt adoption officials cashing in on the vast sums of money made available by the foreign demand for Chinese children.

The newspaper also said local authorities had tricked or coerced Chinese families into giving up newborns for adoption, only to sell those children to orphanages.

The paper quoted parents in the provinces of Guizhou and Hunan who said their babies had been stolen, sold, and adopted overseas in recent years.

Officials from the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs have told foreign diplomats that, while there have been abuses in the past, they no longer occur, Foot reported.

Labels: international, China

Posted By: Aspen/CRC