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Child-selling is the practice of selling children, usually by parents,
legal guardian A legal guardian is a person who has been appointed by a court or otherwise has the legal authority (and the corresponding duty) to make decisions relevant to the personal and property interests of another person who is deemed incompetent, ca ...
s, or subsequent custodians, including adoption agencies, orphanages and Mother and Baby Homes. Where the subsequent relationship with the child is essentially non-exploitative, it is usually the case that purpose of child-selling was to permit
adoption Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...
.


International law

The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption is a treaty which bans the buying and selling of children and attempts to impose controls and regulation on inter-country adoption, which gives rise to the practice.


Afghanistan

According to UNO HR deputy director coordinator the country is very poor so many people are selling their children and unborn children, daughters are being sold into marriage and or for forced child labor for $850-2000 US dollars.


China

According to
Frank Dikötter Frank Dikötter (; , born 1961) is a Dutch historian who specialises in modern China. Dikötter is the author of ''The People's Trilogy'', which consists of ''Mao's Great Famine'' (2010), ''The Tragedy of Liberation'' (2013), and ''The Cultural ...
, in 1953 or 1954, when there was starvation, "across the country people sold their children" and a 1950 report by the
Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
on
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
"deplored ... the sale of children due to joblessness" and, Dikötter continued, sale of children by "many" of the unemployed also occurred in south China, near
Changchun Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, on the Songliao Plain. Changchun is administered as a , comprising seven districts, one county and three county-level cities. At the 2020 census of China, Changchun ha ...
"some families sold their children", in 1953 during a famine in some provinces "desperate parents even bartered their children", and one price in 1950–1953 in Nanhe County was "a handful of grain", another price in 1953 or 1954 having been 50 yuan, enough for the father (the seller) to buy rice to last through a famine. According to a 2006 report, low-income families and unwed mothers sell babies, often girls, in the underground market in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, and the sales are to parents who want servants, more children, or future brides for sons. "Relatively few Chinese brokers are caught and prosecuted." According to a 2007 English newspaper report, in China, 190 children were snatched every day, but the Chinese government did not acknowledge the extent or cause of the problem. According to a 2013 English-language Chinese newspaper report, Chen Shiqu, director of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security's human trafficking task force, said that since a DNA database started in April 2009 it has matched 2,348 children with their biological parents. Zhang Baoyan, founder of the non-government organisation Baby Back Home, said the database is the most effective way to reunite families. Baby Back Home receives an average of 50 inquiries a day from abducted children and their parents; Baby Back Home gives blood samples to the ministry for DNA testing. However Zhang Baoyan, founder of Baby Back Home, said that "there are still some parents of missing children who have no idea about the DNA database". A 2013 English news magazine report describes Xiao Chaohua, a campaigning parent of an abducted child, as believing that the authorities could be doing a lot more. Xiao says that buyers of abducted children still often get away without punishment—they usually live in villages and sometimes enjoy protection from local officials. He says orphanages sometimes fail to take DNA from children they receive.


Ireland

Legal adoption was introduced to Ireland by the passage of the Adoption Act in 1952, which took effect from 1 January 1953. Both prior to and after the enactment of this law, children were regularly trafficked for the purposes of adoption, usually to the United States, by religious orders who ran adoption agencies and Mother and Baby Homes. Journalist and author Mike Milotte estimates that as many as 4,000 such illegal adoptions took place, from the 1940s to the 1970s.


Malaysia

In 2005 in
Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
, baby-selling rings were believed by some to be "thriving", although this activity was still considered criminal. A 2016 report by
Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...
exposed that baby selling was ongoing in Malaysia for a long time, with the babies brought in from countries like
Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
and
Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...
. Some babies will be bought by couples desperate to start a family, while other babies are sold to traffickers and forced to become sex slaves or beggars. Prostitution rings also offer babies from their foreign sex workers who get pregnant with some of the sex workers even willing to contact any couples by themselves to offer their babies as Malaysian laws does not allow migrant workers to bear children in the country.


United Kingdom

Lawrence Stone reported some attempted sales of children accompanying wives sold by husbands to new husbands, one in 1815 and another discussed in 1763. ( Wife sale in England was illegal but believed to be lawful and widely practiced in southern
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
and the
Midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefor ...
.) Historian E. P. Thompson reported a sale of two children with a sale of a wife to an American in 1865 for £25 per child (the wife being sold for another £100). In atypical cases, a wife and four children were sold for a shilling each, apparently to preclude an expulsion to be forced by
poor law In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of hel ...
officials, and a wife and child, born after she started living with her lover but before the sale, were sold. In another case, a wife and baby about a year old were sold at an auction, where the selling husband said, " me on wi' yer bids, and if yer gies me a good price fer the ooman, I'll gie yer the young kid inter the bargain.... I'll tell thee wot, Jack ... if thee't mak it up three gallons o' drink, her's thine, I'll ax thee naught fer the babby, an' the halter's worth a quart. Come, say shillins!" In various cases, when wife sales split families, it appears that the youngest children went with mothers and older children went with fathers. Procedures for selling children were often like those for selling wives when they relied on the contractual method, even if the contract was not legally enforceable.


United States

Georgia Tann, of
Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...
, was employed by the Tennessee Children's Home Society. According to reporter Barbara Bisantz Raymond, Tann, in 1924–1950, stole many children and sold 5,000 children, most or all of them white. The children were adopted by families in exchange for substantial fees (ostensibly for transport and hotel but Tann charged multiple times for a single trip and collected the money personally rather than through the Tennessee Children's Home Society) and processed the adoptions without investigating adoptive parents except for their wealth. Amounts charged for adoptions ranged from $700 to $10,000 when "reputable agencies ... hargedalmost nothing". Tann, in a 1944 speech accusing others of unlicensed adoption placements, did not admit selling children herself. According to Raymond, Tann made adoption socially acceptable. Previously, when the first U.S. state adoption law was passed in 1851, adoption was "not immediately popular". Early in the 20th century, adoption was "rare". Low-income birth parents from whom children were taken were generally considered genetically inferior, and the children, considered adoptable, were considered therefore genetically tainted. Before Tann's work,
indenture An indenture is a legal contract that reflects an agreement between two parties. Although the term is most familiarly used to refer to a labor contract between an employer and a laborer with an indentured servant status, historically indentures we ...
was applied to some children with the duties to educate the children and to provide them with land scarcely enforced, and the Orphan Train Project gathered children and transported them for resettlement under farmers needing labor, using a procedure akin to a slave auction. Some children's custody was changed "through secretive means" between sets of parents, some willing and some unaware. Baby farms, where many children were murdered, sold children for up to $100 each. Tann, apparently disagreeing with the prevailing view, argued (against her own belief) that children were "blank slates", thus free of the sin and genetic defects attributable to their parents, thus making adoption appealing, and providing a way for children who might otherwise have been dead to survive and receive care. Her waiting lists included much of the
U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
. One person adopted through the Tennessee Children's Home Society was wrestler
Ric Flair Richard Morgan Fliehr (born February 25, 1949), known professionally as Ric Flair, is an American retired professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Flair's career spanned 50 years. He is ...
. Brokers who sold babies were found in
Augusta, Georgia Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...
, and
Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the List of cities in Kansas, most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397, ...
. A sale by a
midwife A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and Infant, newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughou ...
occurred in
New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
, a child was sold twice on one train ride, and one "father ... traded his unborn daughter for a poker debt." In 1955–1956, attempts to pass U.S. Federal legislation to ban baby-selling failed.


Cambodian children to the U.S.

In 1997–2001, Lauryn Galindo "made $8 million by arranging eight hundred adoptions of Cambodian children by unwitting Americans", one being
Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie ( ; born Angelina Jolie Voight, , June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. The recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Angelina Jolie, numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards ...
. For Galindo, baby buyers, often taxi drivers and orphanage managers, offered low-income mothers (chosen by baby recruiters) money or rice for children, whom Galindo claimed were orphans and for whom adopting families paid around $11,000 in fees. Galindo, saying she intended "to save children from desperate circumstances" and that she felt she acted "with the highest integrity", was convicted in the U.S. and sentenced to a year and a half in prison.


Other cultures and worldwide

In
Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
, "babies of ... young women are sometimes sold to adoptive parents before their mothers even leave the hospital." In 2007, brokering was being investigated by
Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...
in Greece. Worldwide, in recent years, according to reporter Barbara Bisantz Raymond, brokers steal and sell children. In
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
, and
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
, in 2007, brokering was being investigated by Interpol.


In popular culture

* ''Stolen Babies'', a cable TV movie starring
Mary Tyler Moore Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on '' The Dick Van Dyke Show'' (1961–1966) and ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (1970–1977), whic ...
* ''
Mommie Dearest ''Mommie Dearest'' is a memoir and exposé written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of Academy Award winning actress Joan Crawford. Officially released by William Morrow and Company on November 10, 1978 (though thousands of copies ha ...
''; "Joan Crawford s... ''Mommie Dearest'' daughter supposedly came from the Tennessee Children's Home Society" *
Donna Troy Donna Troy is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. She is the original Wonder Girl, and later temporarily adopts another alias, Troia. Created by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani, she first appeared in ''The Brave an ...
, in comic book fiction * In '' Pete's Dragon'', a
Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
movie released in 1977, Pete, the title character, was found to have been sold to the Gogans, an uneducated family who used him as cheap labor until he ran away. * In ''
Oliver Twist ''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 and as a three-volume book in 1838. The story follows the titular orphan, who, ...
'', Mr. Bumble sold Oliver to an undertaker. * '' To Be the Man'', the
autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...
of
Ric Flair Richard Morgan Fliehr (born February 25, 1949), known professionally as Ric Flair, is an American retired professional wrestler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Flair's career spanned 50 years. He is ...
, begins with the opening chapter "Black Market Baby"; Flair's parents obtained him from the Tennessee Children's Home Society. * '' Broker (2022 film)'' a South Korean film about two brokers and the mother of an abandoned baby that follows the brokers on their journey to sell the baby. .


See also

* Adoption fraud * Child harvesting * Child laundering *
Human trafficking Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or oth ...
* International adoption *
International child abduction The term international child abduction is generally synonymous with international parental kidnapping, child snatching, and child stealing. In private international law the term usually refers to the illegal removal of children from their h ...
* List of international adoption scandals *
Trafficking of children Trafficking of children, also known as child trafficking, is a form of human trafficking and is defined by the United Nations as the "recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of a child" for the purpose of slavery, forced labour, and s ...
* Wife selling *
Commodification Commodification is the process of transforming inalienable, free, or gifted things (objects, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals) into commodities, or objects for sale.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trade Stati ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * {{Adopt Childhood Interpersonal relationships Family law Crimes against children Human commodity auctions