International Adoptions: A Global Scandal

An excited crowd greets children as flight attendants carry them from the plane. For 60 years the media has portrayed “orphan rescue missions” in this way. But the TV images conceal the shocking reality of the international adoption trade.

Under the supervision of governments, social workers and adoption agencies, children from Africa, Chile, South Korea and Nepal were taken from their biological parents and transported to countries in the West, where they were given forged documents and new identities. Once adults, the adoptees of Western families search for their identity. Many discover that their adoption was an illegal transaction. With the help of legal, journalistic and administrative staff, they untangle the international network through which they lost their chance to grow up with their biological parents.