Sunday, August 30, 2015

Adoption-for-cash scheme took newborns from mothers


A man working in the Sonora child protection agency colluded with a doctor to sell newborns into adoption by using false birth certificates. The suspect targeted vulnerable mothers, poor people or women with drug problems and took away their babies.

A child welfare official in northern Mexico took at least nine babies from poor or drug-addicted mothers and offered them to adoptive parents in exchange for payments ranging from $5,000 dollars to $9,000 dollars, authorities said Friday.

Raúl Ramírez, the head of the Sonora state Human Rights Commission, said the scheme apparently went on for years and may involve many more children.

“They searched for vulnerable mothers, poor people or those who had problems of drug addiction, and took away their babies and offered them in adoption in return for money,” Ramírez said.

Three of the babies have been identified and recovered, but Ramírez said “there may be many more, from years back, and some of these children could be 20 years old by now.”  (more...)


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