International adoption is driven more by money than by need, and many “orphans” are in fact not orphans, journalist E.J. Graff reported in “The Lie We Love,” a Foreign Policy story reprinted in Utne Reader‘s May-June 2009 issue. In a subsequent slide show and essay for Slate, Graff follows a thread of the story further by profiling families who’ve been affected by corrupt adoptions. From a Guatemalan mother, Ana Escobar (above), who found her kidnapped daughter about to be sent to the United States for adoption, to American parents who learned the truth when their adopted toddlers learned to speak English, these stories put an achingly human face on the dark side of adoption.
Sources: Foreign Policy, Slate
Image of Ana Escobar by Adam Nadel, courtesy of Adam Nadel.
