Adoption Agencies Are Separating African Children From Their Parents

it's ten below zero in the small Midwestern American town of Iowa Falls a winter wonderland for some but not for Journey Bradshaw it was very hard cuz like you don't know how things work you know new place new language new culture new everything's new your family your friends I call it solder all right this sixteen-year-old looks like she's leading a very normal American life attending high school making friends and contemplating her future the reality though she firmly believes her real horn is far away from here I didn't know I'm gonna stay here I mean they never told me that I'm gonna have a family that I'm gonna stay with and I'm supposed to be their daughter they never told me that I just find that out when I got here Jenny Bradshaw was born in Ethiopia how she came to be living in a small town in the United States is just one harrowing example of what happens when good intentions collide with money corruption and the largely unregulated adoption industry in Ethiopia you can't imagine the depth of her pain no one will understand the damage it was seriously as if someone had ripped the soul out of her body and just left her it was unbelievable it was absolutely unbelievable when foreign correspondent traveled to Ethiopia last year to investigate international adoptions we knew the system was faulty but we were stunned by both the scale of the industry and the exploitation of the vulnerable Hotel foyers were filled with Western families and their newly adopted children but behind many snapshot moments lay a trail of deception if you want your child to be adopted by a family in America little mates take children being recruited from firm Lee's for adoptive parents overseas mothers who say they were tricked into giving up their children nahin hai legs Elam at a classical anonymity luminarias protected Ethiopia unlike the United States has not signed the Hague Convention on intercom tree adoption as a result international adoptions have become a first rather than last resort and foreign agencies are taking advantage well here's one of the biggest pieces of hypocrisy and adoption if they're hanging credited what are they doing doing business with a country that isn't I hate its honor and the answer is that they know that they have much more freedom to do whatever they want to do and to bully people in countries that aren't hade signatory it's like selling I told my family here that I feel like I've been sold all right you guys ready yeah jurnee Bradshaw first found herself with this family who'd live in Virginia on the east coast of the United States Katie Bradshaw and her husband Calvin already had two biological children but a heart condition prevented them from having more they picked three sisters aged 4 6 and 7 from the website of an agency called Christian wold adoption or CWA yeah but when they received CW A's DVD they had questions about the eldest called our caseworker numerous times and was saying this girl looks much older Katie Bradshaw says CWA reassured her the eldest was no older than 9 okay she said the situation with these girls is that their father is very very poor the only living relatives they have is their father and their 14 year old brother their father is very ill he's dying of HIV she said you know being that they're very poor they will become prostitutes and immediately I think any woman who here's the photo of the children you're looking at are about to become prostitutes what woman wouldn't say oh my gosh I must do what I can six months later the adoption was complete and Katie Bradshaw flew to Ethiopia to pick them up I just with kept looking at the oldest girl and thinking to myself oh my gosh she has got to be a teenager this girl has got to be at least 13 years old what am I going to do what what am I going to do I'm 26 journey was not seven not nine she was 13 her sisters mirror and meri were 11 and six you know they they get you in country and then you find out the truth and what do you do you know you've spent all of this money and here are these children and here's this big lie now what do you do with it all because you have a plane at home in 48 hours it turned out the girls had three older sisters a brother and a healthy father who is a government employee as a kid in the energy system as ever they go so this is the food that you are eating at your celebration their family had given them a lavish farewell and videoed it for them to take to America a lot of friends and family for some orphans right in the u.s. Journey Bradshaw proved too much for her young adoptive family to handle everyday they like they have family dinners and it's like yeah I want to go to jail beer I don't want to be here and she said you're a part of our family you you need to start acting like it and I was like I'm not part of you failing she would have meltdowns for an hour where she was screaming and crying and pounding her fists and slamming against the wall and throwing herself on the floor I would sit on the bed in her room and I would watch her because I didn't want her to be alone but she was a teenager I couldn't hold her down okay so this one is when your sister graduated mm-hmm angry and unsettled journey Bradshaw went to live with Katy Bradshaw's mother Mary Nelson and although she separated from her two sisters it seems to work that's my brother Thomas Karen does my dad Lamar that's my sister I know them and so this is the teacher Hannah's teacher this is the nurse she's gone into nursing school right now it was very hard to hear the phone calls from Katie it's taken a long time to just accept it and when when she was in Ethiopia and hurting and figuring things out that things just weren't right sorry it was heartbreaking because I knew all they wanted to do was adopt some children who dad no family and make a life for him and so in the middle of the mayhem a confused and damaged teenager journey Bradshaw claims CWA told her she was going on a study trip an adventure to the US that would see her return to Ethiopia often not the one-way trip it turned out to be what would you say to a 16 year old girl who had been traumatized by having been lied to by CWA well first of all you're presuming that that happened right you don't have any proof of that you have any evidence of that I don't know if these things are even true but the second thing I would say is I really doubt that a 16 year old girl was lied to in the fashion you told me it just doesn't make sense Maryann there's so many children that are available why twist and contort and steal and harvest why do those things if there's so many children who legitimately need help it just doesn't make sense I think they're running people's lights I was so angry I just wanted to go there one side and say why why me what what have I ever done to you you know why what have I ever done to you that makes you lie all this and have me stuck and where I can't go back until I'm 18 if we don't rein in American adoption agencies and if we don't regulate adoption adoption will continue to be a human rights catastrophe based outside of Boston Maureen flatly is a child welfare advocate who's worked for more than a decade trying to reform America's international adoption industry in the US we think of adoption is a good thing and it is it can be a good thing but for something that's so important and affects the lives of not just the children but the families to adopt them oftentimes not to mention the birth parents we've really been very careless about it and we've really let the Fox guard the henhouse adoption to a lot of people is second choice or Plan B it's never clean bed for us adoptions have taken a place at the heart of America's identity of generosity and family values Americans adopt more foreign children than the rest of the world combined who are the treasured and the brass concerts like this held during adoption month are backed by international adoption agencies an appeal to Christians to save the world's orphans to international adoptions have become a major money spinning industry but there's little corresponding oversight of private adoption agencies States make their own laws the federal government has limited control and with the Christian movement a powerful lobbying force for votes politicians at all levels tread carefully may all four hundred thousand churches in America rescue those 143 million orphans thank you now I think that the adoption industry has been extremely skillful at positioning themselves as the advocates for adoption as opposed to the business interests of adoption they have intimidated and in some cases overly threatened American politicians and specifically members of Congress to allege that if they attempt to do anything to regulate adoption in this country they will be anti adoption when in fact just the opposite is true and what no one wants to acknowledge an adoption is that these agencies are not doing this for free they're charging people for okay thank you for who you are we thank you for our family Pam and Juan Johnson was certainly Pro adoption in Jesus name we pray you they already had five children from their previous marriages but their faith led them to embrace Christian world adoptions call to rescue the world's orphans so what is your mother and father me yes sir what'd she say and what he said oh they have six Ethiopian children two sets of siblings their adoptions have cost them more than $100,000 and a great deal of heartache we were told that at nine and 11 they were going to be put out on the street and be prostitutes that it was just a matter of time our heartstrings were so pulled that those things would happen their eldest adopted daughter turned out to be 16 not 11 and they discovered all of the children had large extended families aunts and uncles who could provide several very wealthy they never would have been put out on the streets they never went without two meals a day they lived in a home that had electricity they lived in a home where they had enough beds so all kinds of circumstances were not what we were told were still like Journey Bradshaw one sibling group had no idea they were leaving their mother and Ethiopia for good our children were told they were coming here just to go to school and they could go home they have a mother at home they're having a very very difficult time bonding and and rightly so how can they how can they bond and become part of a family and integrate in if they think they're going home I'm angry that my children will have to sort through this emotional mess okay we need to get Christian world adoption is one of the largest adoption agencies in the u.s. its CEO Tommy Lee Harding is a prominent figure in the industry but despite a number of invitations has chosen not to step forward for this report I think it's fair to say that Tommy Lee Harding has been one of the conspicuous leaders in the adoption industry who has lobbied very actively against greater accountability greater oversight and certainly against federal regulation of adoption persistent requests over the last seven months for an interview with Christian world adoption management have all been rebuffed instead the agency sent its lawyer why hasn't Tommy Lee Harding spoken to us um a couple reasons actually one is because there is a measure of distrust between CWA and ABC and candidly their view would be that ABC has misrepresented things that have occurred in Ethiopia and so they're cautious they would dispute in an hour-long interview that he insisted on videotaping and has since posted on the Internet Kurtis Bostick said he couldn't discuss individual cases for legal reasons and denied that CWA had done anything wrong accusing foreign correspondent of gross inaccuracies CWA is an incredibly gifted incredibly passionate organization whose people pour themselves out every day for people that can do nothing for them I think that's more than can be said for most of us but let's call Mel Marriott and he gave us a taste of how the agency reacts to challenges about its practices why didn't CWA have a program keeping those children within their family does ABC know because they do an hour job because it's not your job is its ewas job cw8 has it as a job because CWA cares about people it's a it's a peer-reviewed accredited hegh approved 501c3 organization your business has an eight hundred fifty million dollar budget in 2008 you do nothing to help the starving kids in Ethiopia and yet here we sit while you throw stones at the way a nonprofit organization tries to pour out and give to those people isn't there an irony to that the real irony is the organization that claims to oversee the practices of international adoption agencies is actually made up of those same adoption agencies based just outside Washington DC close to legislators the Joint Council on international Children Services is arguably the most powerful International Adoption Lobby and advocacy group in the world CWS tommy lee harding is a past president and current member the Joint Council has one goal and one goal only and that is to avoid federal regulation of adoption they are the big tobacco of adoption they are a trade association that nominally espouses the highest standards but which is harboring the very people who have been involved in some of the biggest abuses and adoption they haven't laid a hand on them if we find a family in America where your child become part of that family the Joint Council launched an investigation into seed of your way following our story last year but so far has refused to publish the findings and has not taken up interview opportunities with foreign correspondent they will become American citizens just as if they had been born in America America monofin u.s. international adoption agencies are rarely held accountable for their practices this Northern Californian adoptive mother feels abandoned in our program last year Lisa Beaulieu who had previously lost a foster child to SIDS claimed CWA promised her a healthy boy get down can you bend knees bent bend but she soon discovered her adopted son had a long list of serious medical conditions we had already had a huge heartbreak the prognosis for Zane shortens his life and the thought of burying another child is well beyond what I could do I'm sorry I want you to know that I'm gonna investigate statements that you make just like you investigate mine Christian world adoptions response to Lisa both speaking out well they're suing her why is CWA suing Lisa Bo um let me say it this way tonight Marianne a half a million children in Ethiopia will sleep on the street by sunset tonight five hundred will die from starvation and there are children today who need to be rescued their children today who need what caring American and Australian families can bring them what what Lisa Bou did was make a series of exaggerations and misrepresentations that has slowed and in some cases halted that process when the branches complained to a consumer watchdog CWA claimed they were unfit parents and trying to have both their adoptive and biological children taken away from them permanently so they reported us to the Child Protective Services and recommended that they remove the children from our home thankfully we had a caseworker who was able to get it cleared up for us but it was it was frightening it was absolutely just frightening I've never been so scared in my life Christian world adoption told us it's not responsible for verifying any of the information it provides to clients not the children's ages health or even whether they're really orphans why then have we spoken to several families who actually have discovered that their children come from middle-class educated parents why does that happen well in order for a child to be adopted the Ethiopian government has to deem the child an orphan CWA does not do that the Ethiopian government reserves that right to themselves the problem with that is the Ethiopian government hasn't signed the Hague Convention on into country adoption and the system is open to abuse by families officials and agencies the Bradshaw's bows and Johnston's are not isolated cases and Christian world adoption isn't the only agency of concern many adoptive parents who have used other agencies have told us similar stories equally as devastating this has to stop adoptions have got to get ethical in every country across the board this has got to quit being about money this has got to start being about children and I really hope that the world will wake up to what a crime of humanity this is this is trafficking in my opinion the way that these are being conducted her world was ripped away from her and you can't replace that I'm trying to make other people's lives better because mine was horrible I don't want anybody to go through the things I did what happened just happened you know you can't really change the past but you can change the future for yourself and others that's what comes

Channel: Journeyman Pictures

Views: 46,919

Rating: 4.6217494 out of 5

Keywords: journeyman pictures, news, current affairs, world news, documentary, Ethiopia, adoption, children, trafficking, strangers, America, trauma, family, adoption agency, fraud, sold, Fly Away Home, Africa

Id: gYScFV053Vw

Length: 25min 29sec (1529 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2016