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Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The above-mentioned motivations for carrying out illegal adoptions often overlapped, as was notably the case in Spain throughout the Franco regime and during the first decades of democracy. Indeed, the practice of illegally adopting children for ideological and religious reasons soon morphed into a profit-driven criminal activity. Thousands of newborn babies were reportedly abducted from their parents by criminal networks involved in large-scale illegal adoptions. Medical personnel and clergy members actively participated in the abduction of children. Newborn babies were abducted from hospitals and subsequently told that their parents had died. The children were then given to other parents following the falsification of documents and, in certain cases, payments.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Infants
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 84
- Paragraph text
- Guatemala presents one of the few examples of investigation and prosecution efforts having been made with the aim of dismantling criminal structures. In 2011, with the support of the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, the Public Prosecutor's Office proved the existence of a criminal structure involved in trafficking in children for the purpose of illegal intercountry adoptions operated by owners of residential facilities with the complicity of lawyers, registrars and judges. Despite the convictions, the case illustrated the difficulties in balancing the conflicting needs and desires of those involved in adoptions (adoptees, adoptive parents and biological parents) and the interests of justice.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 86
- Paragraph text
- Various countries emerging from conflict or an authoritarian regime have been confronted with allegations of systematic illegal adoptions as part of past large-scale abuses. Few countries have responded to victims' calls for truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, however, and none have done so in a comprehensive manner. Argentina has pioneered such responses, in particular in relation to enforced disappearances, through truth-seeking and accountability. Genetic tracing and the establishment of a national genetic database have played a key role in identifying disappeared children who were subjected to illegal adoption and in efforts to seek judicial accountability. Moreover, the "disappeared" children, now adults, are stepping forward to uncover their biological origins and some are playing a role in the prosecution of their adoptive parents.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 81
- Paragraph text
- The various parties involved in illegal adoptions are reluctant to report or denounce suspected illegalities because of the possible implications. The birth parents are the notable exception, at least those whose children have been abducted or placed for adoption without their informed consent; unfortunately, they are the least likely to file a complaint, as many of them fear the consequences or lack the appropriate knowledge and access to remedies. Most adoptive parents do not know with certainty whether the adoption process involved illicit or criminal practices, although they may come to suspect as much during or after the adoption process. The responses of prospective or adoptive parents to such suspicions will depend on a number of factors, including the extent to which they feel they were directly implicated and their assessment of the likely consequences of notifying the competent authorities. Complaints filed and collaboration extended by adoptive parents increase the chances of success of criminal investigations and prosecutions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- The abduction of babies (e.g. through kidnappings or by falsely informing parents that their baby was stillborn or died shortly after birth), the improper inducement of consent (e.g. through misrepresentation, bribery or coercion) and improper financial gain (e.g. through payment for the child or the payment of bribes to intermediaries involved in the adoption process) are among the most common methods used in the sale of children and illegal adoptions. Inherent to the methods is the falsification of documents (e.g. birth and medical certificates, the identification documents of the biological mother, DNA test results and relinquishment or abandonment declarations) and the bypassing of regulations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Infants
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- The above-mentioned methods, illegal acts and illicit practices are generally linked to deficiencies in the child protection system (such as inadequate procedures for providing counselling to biological parents and flawed relinquishment procedures), which are exploited by criminal networks driven by the lucrative business of selling children and facilitating illegal adoptions, often with the involvement of State officials. When illegal acts and illicit practices are of a systemic nature, States bear responsibility for them by either omission or complicity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- The placement of children in alternative care settings, in particular in residential facilities, is often a first step leading to a determination of their adoptability. The false assumption that all children in such institutions are adoptable has widely contributed to illegal adoptions, as children can be taken without the appropriate consent even though they still have a parent, family member or other kin willing and able to care for them. In Nepal, for example, intercountry adoptions have been interrupted by receiving countries owing to the insufficiency of the procedures in place to determine the adoptability of a child.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- Illegal domestic adoptions continue to occur in countries with weak child protection systems, in much the same way as they used to, in other words with the involvement of criminal networks and the participation of State officials and targeting vulnerable populations such as families in economic hardship. In China, there have been several cases of criminal networks abducting, trafficking and selling babies for the purpose of illegal adoption. Moreover, there have been reports of family planning officials being involved in improperly inducing consent from parents in order to sell the children or transfer them for domestic or international adoption or forced labour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Vulnerability owing to poverty underlies decisions to abandon children and relinquish parental rights over them, thus rendering them adoptable. Nevertheless, poverty alone cannot be invoked as sufficient justification for placing or receiving a child in alternative care. National authorities and foreign actors - the latter being more inclined to finance "orphanages" than family-strengthening programmes - are failing in their responsibilities to support vulnerable families through comprehensive child protection systems.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- In the context of conflicts or following a natural disaster, children are often separated from their families and the national infrastructure is weakened or rendered incapable of functioning. In such situations, adoption processes are particularly open to abuse: children may be deemed adoptable even though their parents are still alive or there may be no monitoring function to ensure that no illegal acts are being committed.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- The methods employed and the actors involved are often the same in cases of illegal domestic and intercountry adoptions. Similarly, in both cases vulnerable parents, in particular mothers, are often targeted (e.g. single mothers in situations of economic hardship, from rural areas, belonging to indigenous communities and/or without access to education).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 91
- Paragraph text
- Illegal adoptions, namely adoptions that are the result of crimes such as the abduction and sale of and the trafficking in children or that are processed through the commission of other illegal acts or illicit practices such as the lack of proper consent of biological parents, fraud and improper financial gain, violate multiple child rights norms and principles, including the best interests of the child.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- There have also been mounting concerns in several countries regarding the practice of child protection services using the placement of children in alternative care, which may involve adoption, as an option of first resort, rather than providing the required support to families.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 82
- Paragraph text
- A good practice related to the proactive detection of illegal acts and illicit practices in receiving countries is the protocol for responding to allegations of child trafficking in intercountry adoption, which was designed by the Government of Australia to respond to concerns of adoptive parents and adoptees regarding abduction, sale and trafficking in intercountry adoptions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- Large-scale illegal adoptions have also taken place in the context of conflicts or authoritarian regimes and their aftermath. During the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, for example, the authorities abducted hundreds of children from parents considered to be opponents of the regime. In most cases, arbitrarily detained pregnant women had their children removed once they had given birth; in other cases, children were arrested along with their parents and then separated from them. All the parents were forcibly disappeared or murdered by the regime. The babies were registered as the biological children of families close to or linked with the regime or of the individuals who had abducted them, and in some cases were given up for adoption. The falsification of documents was widely used to officialize such illegal acts and illicit practices.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- A major enabling factor for illegal adoptions is the significant discrepancy between the number of prospective parents seeking to adopt and the number of children who are truly adoptable. The discrepancy is greatest in respect of the most sought-after children (generally, those who are young and healthy), while the children most often found in care are older and have a variety of specific requirements. The unrealistic number of prospective parents fuels frustration and sometimes leads to the commission of illegal acts to obtain the much lower number of adoptable children.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Older persons
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- In the context of the present report, adoptions resulting from crimes such as abduction and sale of and trafficking in children, fraud in the declaration of adoptability, falsification of official documents or coercion, and any illicit activity or practice, such as lack of proper consent by biological parents, improper financial gain by intermediaries and related corruption, constitute illegal adoptions and must be prohibited, criminalized and sanctioned as such.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Study on illegal adoptions 2017, para. 95j
- Paragraph text
- [At the national level] [The Special Rapporteur invites all States to:] Ensure the right to information about one's origins and access to information about the rights of victims of illegal adoptions, and facilitate the work of victims' organizations in that respect, including in terms of helping them to trace biological parents and children;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- While data remains scarce, ILO has concluded that there are significant numbers of children in debt bondage, child victims of trafficking and children in situations of servitude. The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations has defined numerous situations of domestic work as amounting to child labour and, in several instances, forced labour. Children can be forced into domestic work under the guise of adoption, in conditions similar to bonded labour. Children may also be sold for the purpose of forced domestic work because their families are in bonded labour. A UNICEF study has highlighted the multiple ways in which children are recruited for domestic work. In some cases, intermediaries earn money from the child's placement and/or by taking a significant share of children's wages.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 94
- Paragraph text
- Social policy measures that ensure a minimum standard of living and protect families in case of shocks have been found to be particularly effective in preventing labour exploitation and trafficking. An ILO report which focused on social protection as an instrument to eliminate child labour, found that cash transfers were more effective among children from poorer backgrounds and when coupled with other interventions, such as the provision of health and education services. Similarly, health insurance and pension and unemployment benefits can help families cope with a shock which renders a family member unable to work and avoid them resorting to child labour to compensate for loss of income or to pay for treatment. Interventions aimed at supporting parents, such as a public employment programme, may also have a positive effect as long as they do not result in children simply taking the place of their parents in their former jobs.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- Lack of a protective environment in production countries, combined with high levels of demand in high-income countries, provides fertile ground for labour exploitation. A study on the situation of children in cocoa farms has highlighted how their families and children themselves are lured by intermediaries into following them to find work, only to be engaged in forced labour without the possibility of leaving. The fishing industry has also involved a number of children in forced labour, as a result of various forms of sale, including bonded labour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. (b)
- Paragraph text
- Through the sale, the person receiving the child holds control over the child and the child loses his or her freedom and the possibility of leaving the situation. Consent, of the child or of his or her parent(s) or legal guardian, is irrelevant. The impossibility of leaving the situation may be the result of coercion. The threat may affect the child him or herself, or a third party. Forms of coercion concerning children can be much lighter than those considered for adults and can sometimes be simply the result of dependency, given children's limited agency, greater vulnerability to being influenced and sensitivity to threats;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 97
- Paragraph text
- The sale of children for the purpose of forced labour is a multifaceted phenomenon with diverse root causes, risk factors, manifestations and effects. Families may use the sale of children for the purpose of forced labour as a coping strategy for survival. Children, whether sold or entrusted to a third party, may fall into the hands of traffickers, who will in turn sell them for forced labour. They may also end up under the control of criminal organized groups. Demand for products with competitive prices is also a pull factor for the sale of children for forced labour and labour exploitation. In conflict situations, lawlessness and social, economic and institutional breakdown, as well as deliberate conflict strategies, may lead children to be abducted and sold for the purpose of forced labour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- Inadequate monitoring and regulation of the activities of intermediaries can easily result in abusive practices. Intermediaries may use deceptive methods to lure families into releasing a child, or attract children into situations amounting to forced labour. The high fees required for the service is likely to put children and families in situations of debt bondage. Intermediaries may manage the full placement process, taking care of all necessary documents, which are then confiscated, preventing victims from leaving. Intermediaries may be directly linked with criminal networks aiming to exploit workers. Lack of work contracts and dependency on the recruiter for documentation and debt repayment paves the way for forced labour. In most cases, recruiters are aware of the forced labour conditions in which children end up and use deception to recruit them.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- The intermediate level of demand is composed of those who act as facilitators between children and those who exploit them, hence the intermediaries whose involvement is motivated by gain. They may receive the child from families who entrust them to take care of him or her, pay families to receive the child, or be paid by families. They then sell the child to employers for forced labour. The role of intermediaries has received increased attention in recent years as a determining factor in the recruitment of workers in exploitative conditions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Tackling the demand for the sexual exploitation of children 2016, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- The most common providers of children for sexual exploitation are facilitators, who can range from procurers to traffickers and intermediaries, and include financial actors. Such individuals are not always part of criminal networks. Procurers are generally called by their vernacular name, such as "pimp" in English. They are the ones who identify the children and force them into sexual exploitation. Grooming is an essential part of the process. The aim is to entrap the children into a life of sexual servitude and manipulate them at will through extreme methods ranging from physical and psychological abuse to the provision of drugs and alcohol. The demography of procurers is diverse. Though most of them are men, there is a significant presence of women among procurers. There have also been cases of peer driven exploitation. There is also a substantial number of cases of parents and/or family members pushing their children into sexual exploitation in order to provide the family with supplementary income.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- The European Police Office (Europol) has found that many children are sold and trafficked for the purpose of forced begging. Children may be sold by their families, or pregnant women may be recruited and forced to sell their babies. Children have been sold for up to 40,000 euros. According to a comparative study on forced child begging, criminal networks have developed strategies in which they push poor families into debt and then claim the children as a way to pay back those debts. The study found reports of criminal gangs controlling child beggars and practices in which small children were being "rented out" for the purpose of begging.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- Criminal activities are among the services children may be forced to undertake and are considered a form of forced labour. ECPAT UK has highlighted the situation of children engaged in forced labour in cannabis production in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who have been trafficked from other countries. The children are forced by organized criminal groups to work in cannabis factories under hazardous conditions and with no possibility of leaving. Criminal groups use debt bondage and threats of reprisals against the children and their families to prevent them from escaping.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- Final demand from consumers paves the way for complex and globalized supply chains, which are driven by competition for price and lack adequate monitoring and transparency mechanisms to ensure fair working practices at the bottom of the chain. As highlighted by the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, "the lower levels have been shown to be at risk of products or raw materials being sourced from home-based or small workshops in the informal economy and made in situations of debt bondage, forced labour or the worst forms of child labour" (A/HRC/30/35). The flexibility of supply chains, which enables major companies to quickly move production from one area to another, may also affect the economic balance in specific areas, creating a shock that families may cope with by resorting to the sale of children for forced labour.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Sale of children for the purpose of forced labour 2016, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- Socioeconomic factors are prominent determinants of the sale of children for the purpose of forced labour. Studies on child labour in domestic work have highlighted how poverty is a constant variable underlying the practice, sometimes to repay family debts. Targeting poor families has been found to be part of a deliberate strategy by recruiters, especially in cases where the sale of children for the purpose of forced labour involves organized criminal groups or intermediaries.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph