A new and dangerous practice seems to be spreading in the United States, where adoptive parents of children who have become "undesirable," offer their children to strangers online, without any mediation from lawyers or official authorities.
According to a special investigation carried out by news agency Reuters, it's becoming easier to find private online forums in which adopted children's information is exchanged and are "offered" by their parents.
It is a dangerous practice, since said forums are not supervised by the government, which prompted various journalists to denounce these forums wherein child abusers have been discovered to act with impunity, revealed the news agency.
Dangerous Strangers
One of the cases that exemplify the dangers of this new trend Quita Puchalla. Quita is a Liberian teenager whose adoptive parents are Tod and Melisa Puchalla. The couple tried to raise her for over 2 years until the young woman's attitude problems led them to offer her online.
In less than 2 days, they received a reply from Nicole and Calvin Eason, a couple from Illinois, who, despite warnings from the Puchalla's regarding the serious conduct problems of the 16 year old, assured that they could handle the adopted girl.
On October 4, 2008, a week after replying to the post, the Puchalla delivered the teenager to her new parents in the Country Aire Mobile Home Park where the Eason lived. There was no involvement from officials from child protection services or lawyers of any kind. The only thing they needed to sign was a notarized statement, delivering custody of Quita to two strangers.
What Quita's adoptive parents didn't know was that the custody of the Easons' biological children had been taken from them by the authorities a few years back. According to Reuters, a deputy sheriff wrote that the couple had "violent tendencies." Despite Melisa coming up with a code so that Quita could inform her if she was in danger ("I love asparagus"), after delivering the girl to hew new parents, she never came in contact with the Easons or Quita.
An Ever More Common Practice
Authorities took 2 weeks to locate the young woman, remove her from the Eason residence and send her back to Wisconsin, alone in a bus. The girl told Reuters that the first night with her second adoptive parents they made her sleep with them on the same bed. Nicole, said Quita, slept naked.
This type of case is just one of many that have been reported in recent years. According to the investigation, the lack of government supervision in these clandestine adoptions make the parents the only intermediaries, which puts the children at great risk, mostly internationally adopted children, of falling victim of human trafficking or child abusers.
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