International adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador
International adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador
This chapter examines international adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador. International adoption involves a number of policy, service, and legal actors operating within a policy and legal framework. Where officials are corrupt (even if, in their defence, they are driven to be so by their own poverty) or do not fully understand the niceties of that framework, agencies and individuals can manipulate the system to their own advantage. What can be presented by clever operators as an adoption process is, in reality, child trafficking, involving children who have been stolen or removed from parents by a combination of threats and promises. The issue is, in reality, not about a series of ‘irregular acts’ by criminals acting alone. A serious adoption scandal in the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, in 1989, had a major impact on policy formulation and public administration in a crucial moment in the history of child-rights implementation.
Keywords: Ecuador, international adoption, child trafficking, scandal, Quito, policy formulation, public administration, child rights
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