Babies…. for sale!

Some time ago our government authorities closed down an establishment that was being advertised as a care center for abandoned infants. The care center was shut down when the investigation discovered that the babies were actually being sold to foreigners, for illegal adoption.

Of course, those who were running the center felt that they were doing something good for the abandoned babies. They were giving them comfortable homes, with adopting parents who wanted a child. They felt that our laws on adoption were too strict, and that it was moral to find a way around them.

But this led to an intensive examination of the baby trade. The results of this investigation were a shock. There are syndicates, in this country, who kidnap babies. They have clients, waiting to adopt a child, illegally. They are usually foreigners, and they pay high, in dollars.

The professional kidnappers have many different ways of operating. Some apply as yayas. Some pretend to be nurses, or nurses’ aides, and they wait in hospitals, looking for a chance to steal an infant. Some go to parks, where babies are brought for fresh air or sun bathing. They befriend the yayas, and at the first good chance they disappear with the baby.

The most ghastly discovery was that some of the children, who were reported missing, were actually being kidnapped and killed for their bodily organs - their kidneys, their eyes. The organs are sold at P5,000 and up. Of course, the kidnappers and the killers lay the flattering unction to their souls that they are killing one to give life to others. But it is still the brutal, criminal business of selling human lives. Selling children.

Some children are kidnapped and turned into beggars, or pickpockets. Some are sold into prostitution. Some are exported to foreign places, like Hong Kong.

All of this led to the passage of a law in our legislature: Republic Act 9208, the "Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act." It created the "Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking" – IACAT.

One of the priority activities of the Council is development of a national media plan that will ensure the delivery of appropriate and consistent information across all sectors of society, especially at the community level, to prevent persons from becoming victims of trafficking, and to increase the national awareness of this criminal, underground activity of trafficking in persons.

When illegal loggers steal our trees, the whole nation is inflamed with anger. When foreigners use dynamite fishing in our rich waters, our government lodges a strong official protest. When land grabbers take the family lands of our indigenous people, which they have owned for a thousand years, all of us – even though we live comfortably in the cities, far away from the crime – express our resentment in radio, television and press. But this – selling our innocent children – is a crime that screams to heaven for vengeance.

Kidnapping of babies and children is not confined to the Philippines. Human trafficking is world wide. A research was done in mainland China, where the strict family-planning policy has spawned "a harrowing trade in infants."

In a little rural town, in Yunnan Province, in southeast China, the researcher found a man standing under a scraggly palm tree, whispering, beckoning, pleading, enticing: "Come, come…. cheap, cheap…. Baby, baby." It was the most lucrative trade in the town.

Girls, two-week old bundles with shocks of black hair, cost $25 each. Boys, traditionally favored, sold for $50 each. Some mothers are giving up "extra" children that violate the nation’s family planning policy. Although women in the rural hinterlands are allowed to have two children, any more result in fines of up to $400 – a staggering sum in villages where the average yearly income is only $30.

It is best when they take the babies quickly, immediately after child birth. Otherwise, mothers get too attached to their children. A woman named Zhang, who handed over her child 17 hours after she was born, said: "I just fed my daughter. I nursed her at my breast. I wanted to give her something of me, before she went away forever."

Other Chinese mothers, because they are desperately poor, deliberately sell their children because they need the money. A 23-year old woman who sold two children just days after they were born, said: "Before, we made money by raising pigs But it takes a year to raise a pig, and it’s expensive to feed. A baby takes only nine months, and doesn’t cost any money."

Babies with high noses and long earlobes are most prized, while those with small eyes and dark skin sell for less. The traffickers load up trucks with vegetables, grain and other diversionary produce. They swaddle the baby in blankets, and pair each one with a fake mother, who is paid for her services. If the smugglers are lucky, they elude the police road blocks that have been set up along the roads to stop the baby trade. In one of the biggest crime busts in recent Chinese history, police spent nearly $100,000 to smash a baby-smuggling racket.

An estimated 4,000 Chinese babies are adopted by American couples each year. The new adopting parents spend up to $500 for their illegal child, a mark-up of at least 900 percent from the original price.

According to the testimony of one smuggler, 5 percent of the babies die en route, from malnutrition or simply from the shock of bumping down endless roads to a new home.

Many of the mothers who surrender their babies think that their children will fare better in wealthy Chinese homes, or in foreign lands.

They do not want to kill their babies. They want their children to live. They want to avoid the dangerous abortions, often performed in fields by untrained women. So they sell the "extra child."

In spite of the efforts of the police, and of the military, to enforce the national law on one child per family, or for two at the most in rural areas, the traffic in babies is still a profitable business. One of the country’s largest underground adoption networks has smuggled out 2,000 babies in the last five years.

And in spite of their parents’ best hopes, not all of the children make it to a better life. If they are adopted within China, some are handed off to work in factories. The prettiest girls often end in underage brothels or as child brides for Chinese men who cannot attract more suitable wives. And they join the legion of "Hei Haizi", or "black children" who do not have legal residence permits and therefore cannot qualify for government subsidies or for schools. Officially, they do not exist.

Here in the Philippines, we should learn from this. When a government tries to limit the number of children in a family, it does not work. It ends in agony for everyone.

For every Filipino father, and for every Filipina mother, their children are the treasure of their home. Their baby is worth more than anything money can buy. As a nation, the most beautiful thing we have is the Filipino family. We are poor in the wealth of the world, but rich in life, and rich in love.

* * *

There is a regular texting service called: One Minute With God.

You can reach it on Globe by texting: Reuter @ 2978

You can reach it on Smart by texting: Reuter @ 326