Zyca said:
I heard in the news a while back in some Asia countries that there was an organization that actually collects children (from adoption) and then removed their vocal ability (apparent something was cut) and severed their legs/arms and put them out on the streets to beg, and then collect the money daily. That was some crazy sick crap, but maybe the high cost of adopting a child is to discourage some organization from hording children and use them for labor?
Interesting and yes, absolutely disgusting about cutting the limbs off etc. Its not something that is going to fly in the USA without heads rolling pretty quickly.
I can appreciate the fact that, potentially (in a world where adopting Internationally does not cost insane amounts of money), a couple could pose be only posing as a couple to collect mass amounts of workers for sweatshops and other twisted schemes. In that case, however, targetting infant children under 12 months would be completely illogical. They can't really do anything for you for several years, so they're a giant wasted expense and an insane black hole sucking up countless hours of time in caring for them early on. After all, if you intend to use them for something, they have to survive don't they?
That is a disturbing worst-case scenario. Sweatshops and systems of disfiguring children to beg for money are scary, but it seems to me that the odds are a lot better of something like that happening to those children by staying in their native countries. Little girls will be pushed out onto the streets and when forced to survive, many will turn to prostitution. Little boys will often turn to crime or anything they can possible use to stay alive. If you are a business focussed on sweatshop labor, you're generally better off operating those overseas in third world countries where government and police are more corrupt and less expensive to bribe. And since the reality is that it costs insane amounts of money to adopt, that's all speculation.
Lets consider something else. In the case cited, the INS's fees are inexcusably high. They don't need to charge all those fees, they are simply taking advantage of a situation where they can take in substantial revenue for minimal effort. In this case, shame on the US government for it.
The lawyer fees in Guatemala exceed $5000. Does anyone here have any idea of how big of a chunk of change $5000 is if you live in Guatemala? Its no small amount if you live in the USA, but there its an absolute fortune! How much of that is actually covering, "Ensuring that the adoptive parents are legit." do you think? It sure as hell doesn't take $5000 to research that much out.
Especially when you're working through an American based adoption agency who takes very very seriously the task of ensuring that the parents are for real and good prospective parents. Does anyone actually believe that a lawyer with that much money coming his way ... gives a flying @#$% about what circumstances that child is going toward? To my understanding, the greatest expense in both Foreign and Domestic adoptions is legally ensuring that the biological parents cannot possibly sue for custody of the child. In many cases, that is a moot point. In China for instance, there is a substantial number of baby girls who are simply being abaondonned because the parents wanted a boy and are not allowed to have 2 children. Those parents are not going to be taking any legal action to regain custody. For most of the abandonned baby girls, China's government knows nothing whatsoever about their parentage, so there is no way for those parents to ever track what happened to that child anyways.
The adoption agency is also overcharging in my opinion, but they are at least can claim that they are actually doing some amount of work for the money they collect. Most other parties involved are doing very little or nothing and charging insane costs for it.
The sad fact of it all is that, once upon a time, adoption cost virtually nothing at all. There have always been parents who couldn't have children on their own, but there was also an overwhelming supply of unwanted children being born.
I suppose that I just feel the need to rant about it all. My wife and I are not rich just yet. We make about $30,000 a year. If the sum total cost of adopting a child constitutes 2/3 of our yearly income, we're completely SOL until we have A LOT more money. Things like rent and bills aren't going to go away. And yet, we make more money than a lot of families I know with 4-5 children. It would surely be nice if there was some means of not spending so much money for the privaledge waiting 2-5 years to adopt a child.