[ripples]

Australia's chief federal magistrate did a speech yesterday at the LAWASIA Conference on "Children and the Law" about the huge trend in baby-trafficking.

Excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald news online:

"CHILD-TRAFFICKING gangs were moving pregnant women from country to country, then waiting for them to give birth before selling their babies, Australia's chief federal magistrate said yesterday.
John Pascoe said the infants were being sold mainly for illegal adoption but also for sexual exploitation, slavery and begging."
Baby-trafficking horror exposed | smh.com.au

Here are some media releases from the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia regarding baby-trafficking:
http://www.fmc.gov.au/pubs/docs/mr220509.pdf
http://www.fmc.gov.au/pubs/docs/mr040808.pdf
Here's an excerpt from the FMC:
"Children who are not registered at birth are particularly vulnerable to traffickers. ‘South Asia is the area where there is the greatest number of unregistered children – approximately 22.5 million children were unregistered in the year 2000 alone,’ Mr Pascoe said."

While I recognise that international adoptive parents are not baby traffickers, this speech provides as a further cautionary note for prospective adoptive parents: check the credentials of the adoption agencies. How well are the agencies screening against (inadvertently) sourcing children from illegal baby-trafficking rings and what evidence can the agencies provide to back up their claims?

I shudder to think how many adoptive parents may be unknowingly adopting children via these illegal networks.