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May 22, 2007

Children of adoption workers kidnapped by “birthmothers”

Filed under: Impoverished Women's News — jjtrenka @ 10:28 pm

“Birthmothers” retaliate, kidnap children of adoption workers

RECEIVING COUNTRIES, May 5, 2008 (Impoverished Women’s News) — A self-identified group of “birthmothers” retaliated against the adoption industry early Monday morning, kidnapping thousands of children of adoption agency workers at traditional shopping malls worldwide.

In major metropolitan centers around the world where children of impoverished women were sent for adoption, the children of middle-class adoption workers went missing, and adoption agency buildings were looted and burned in simultaneous, apparently timed, attacks.

“We are holding the children at a safe but undisclosed location,” said a spokeswoman for the the group claiming responsibility. “Adoption workers who wish to know where their children are being held may apply to our search process, but they should know that we do get many requests and we are very, very busy so they have to be patient,” said the woman who spoke through a translator.

The armed group of insurgents loaded previously undisclosed files, some up to 50 years old, onto trucks and drove to undisclosed locations. Many adoption agency buildings were doused in gasoline and lit on fire. “We thought it would be a good idea to show them a real fucking fire,” said one mother, who asked to be named but who has been anonymous for so long it would be weird to start naming her now.

Adoption workers wondering how to locate their “first children” were urged by the militant mothers’ group to “apply to our Web site if you are interested in locating … biological offspring. We take Visa or PayPal.”

“Make sure you know who to contact first, whether in your own country or another, because like I said, we are very busy,” she added.

The common theme of the day seemed to be grieving adoption workers. “Our children were stolen! Can’t they do something to get them back?” wailed one adoption worker as the firetruck’s siren wailed even more in the background. “What about the government?”

American lawmakers, when asked to give a statement, responded via their interns. “We’re sorry, but we are too busy to care unless you have a rich, well-organized lobbying group or a personal connection with a lawmaker,” they said. “ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!” they added through their automatic e-mail service.

A spokesman for an advocacy group for ethical adoptions said in an interview via phone with Impoverished Women’s News, “We are not sure at this point if it would be ethical or in the best interests of the child to give them back. Most likely it is not. The children have already been integrated into their new environments.”

“We have been aware for quite some time now that human trafficking in intercountry adoption is indeed a problem, which is why we’ve proposed a decades-long programme of reform which might change things in the future, maybe, I guess, if everyone agrees, maybe, it could. Of course adoption always entails loss…. sigh…. I need a snack. Is it 5:30 yet?” the spokesman added.

“Shit, I just lost my job!” she added, when she realized that she was talking about the kidnapped children of middle-to-upperclass adoption workers who speak English, not poor colored women who can’t speak English.

The kidnappings are part of a new wave of violence that has been sweeping across “receiving countries,” first in sporadic and seemingly benign incidents, followed by more organized and open guerrilla warfare. Discontent has been festering for decades in “sending” countries as “birthmothers” — often called “mothers” in local dialect — have become more vocal about the exploitation that has resulted in the “international adoptions” — sometimes referred to as “kidnappings” in local dialect — of their children.

The timed attacks against adoption workers affect relatively few people, so pretty much nobody gives a hoot. In addition, the “birthmothers” are working on brainwashing the general public so that those who may have witnessed such attacks are actually in favor of them.

The sorrow of the mothers of the children now being held by the “birthmothers” has been leavened by the few letters and photographs from the children of the workers that are being occassionally delivered through third parties. Most letters from the children mention their thankfulness that they can, in their new homes, “receive a college education.”

One of the more enlightened and progressive “birthmothers,” who had taken a daughter about 10 years ago and seems to know something, said, “Our family prays for our kidnapped daughter’s ‘birthmother’ every day on ‘Kidnapped Yer White Ass Day!’ That seems to make everyone feel good. We also take her to camp for one week every summer so she can be with other white children and learn the customs of the white people. It’s expensive but it’s worth it. She can say, ‘Hi!’ in her native language. Isn’t it cute?”

“I am talking with my group now about trying to make more family preservation efforts for the children of adoption workers,” she said, while crossing her fingers behind her back.

A few of the children mentioned their dissatisfaction with the process that had brought them to their new homes, but they were advised to shut up.

No one is working for the safe return of the children.

50,000 ANGRY CHINESE FARMERS TELL AMERICAN ADOPTION AGENCIES TO FUCK OFF (sort of)

Filed under: Resistance — jjtrenka @ 7:51 pm
AFP
Published: Monday May 21, 2007
 

Farmers riot in China over “one child” policy

Police clashed violently with protesters in southern China as thousands of angry farmers rioted over the nation’s controversial “one-child” family planning policies, residents said Monday.

Angry farmers besieged up to four township governments in Guangxi province on Friday and Saturday, with police and protesters clashing in at least one demonstration, they said.

The demonstrations occurred after local governments this month dispatched “family planning work teams” to levy fines on families that were violating government population control policies, they said.

One woman in Shapi township, speaking on condition of anonymity, said up to 20,000 people had gathered and rioted there on Saturday, hurling rocks, breaking windows and torching public property.

“The farmers were really angry because the family planning team was going around to homes and making farmers pay fines if they had too many kids,” the woman told AFP by telephone.

“If the farmers had no money they took things from them. Property with value they confiscated, things with no value they destroyed.”

The work teams confiscated everything from livestock, to electronic goods and household items such as pots and pans and teapots, according to the woman and other accounts by locals posted on the Internet.

Photos on the Internet showed family planning work teams dressed in military fatigues and helmets carrying sledge hammers as they marched through Guangxi villages.

On Friday, similar demonstrations erupted in neighbouring Shuiming township, with locals confronting up to 1,000 police armed with clubs and dogs, one witness said.

“It’s hard to say how many people were there, (but) you could say there was a sea of people,” a man in Shuiming township told AFP also on condition of anonymity out of fear of government retribution.

Hong Kong press reports said up to 50,000 farmers protested against the family planning policies in the four Guangxi townships in recent days. Residents and Internet postings indicated the situation was calm on Monday.

Authorities were trying to impose fines ranging from 6,000 yuan (780 dollars) to more than 60,000, depending on how many children the families had, according to the residents contacted by AFP and the Hong Kong reports.

Local and provincial government and police departments refused to comment on the unrest when contacted by AFP Monday.

China has since the 1970s enforced strict family planning measures to control its population, which at 1.3 billion people is the world’s biggest.

Reports of abuse by authorities enforcing the law, such as forced late-term abortions and forced sterilisations, as well as arbitrary fines, are common.

In general, China’s urban dwellers are allowed one child, while rural families can have two if the first child is a girl.

Online chatrooms were awash with postings on the unrest, with some saying that the provincial government had ordered the family planning crackdowns in regions where the population was growing too fast.

Other postings said that local governments were levying the fines in order to raise salaries and bonuses of government workers in the impoverished province.

The protests come against a backdrop of rising social discontent nationwide as the gap between rich and poor has widened during China’s breakneck economic growth.

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Public Security, there were 87,000 protests, officially termed “mass incidents,” reported in 2005, up 6.6 percent on 2004 and 50 percent from 2003.

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