The Orphan Market · Episode 6 of 10 · 36 min
Created Orphans: Ethiopia and the Anatomy of Manufactured Supply
After Guatemala closed in 2008, demand moved to Ethiopia, which was poor, had many young children, and was not bound by the Hague Convention. By 2010 it supplied nearly a quarter of U.S. international adoptions. Village recruiters, falsified paperwork, and orphanages run as feeder businesses drove the boom, and a series of scandals and fraud convictions led to a total ban in 2018.
Who's who
- E. J. GraffJournalist at the Schuster Institute who investigated adoption corruption
- Kathryn Joyce+3 more episodesJournalist who reported on the adoption industry
- Karen Smith-RotabiScholar who studied intercountry adoption in Ethiopia
- Kelley BunkersResearcher who studied intercountry adoption in Ethiopia
- Arun DohleHead of Against Child Trafficking, which investigated Ethiopian cases
Where it happens
- Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, EthiopiaRural region where many children were recruited
- Addis Ababa, EthiopiaSite of the U.S. Embassy that tightened orphan investigations
- Washington State, United StatesWhere an adopted girl died of abuse in 2011
Timeline
- 2010Ethiopia supplies roughly a quarter of U.S. international adoptions; one agency loses its license in December.
- March 2011Ethiopia sharply slows processing and the U.S. Embassy tightens orphan investigations.
- February 2014The Justice Department indicts four employees of a U.S. agency; guilty pleas follow.
- November 8, 2017Ethiopia imposes a moratorium on intercountry adoption.
- January 9, 2018Parliament permanently bans intercountry adoption.
Still debated
No one knows how many Ethiopian adoptions were fraudulent, and how much U.S. agencies should have known about village-level falsification is partly litigated. Critics say the ban stranded genuinely parentless children; defenders say it ended an exploitative market.
