Anti-trafficking organizations in Freetown are also feeling the effects of the HANCI case.So go ahead and steal children for adoption, lie to their parents about what's to happen with them, fabricate records -- but no worries, it's not trafficking! Sigh.
Janet Nickel works as a technical advisor for an anti-trafficking program with World Hope International. She says communities they work with are confusing adoption and trafficking. They think it means the same thing.
Nickel explains some do not realize that trafficking involves exploitation. "So you explain that and then people say oh yes, that is happening, it's going on in our community and they can start naming cases where somebody has been exploited but they never thought of it as trafficking, as they thought trafficking is adoption," she stated.
She also questions if the trafficking charges are even accurate. "If there's no exploitation, if it's not for criminal purpose, it doesn't fit the definition of child trafficking," she added.
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Nickel adds one young woman adopted through HANCI has come back and met her biological father. She says there is no evidence of any exploitation of the adoptee.
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2 years ago
3 comments:
SMH
Being forced to be the child that is "as if born to" complete strangers is exploiting a child.
I personally know Janet Nickel and she has dedicated the past 22 years of her life serving the people of Sierra Leone and is an avid child rights activist. She fights day and night for trafficked, exploited and victimized children. I think it is important that the definition of trafficking be clarified in this situation especially in a country where education is so critical. Janet would NEVER advocate on behalf of an illegal adoption but is simply clarifying the difference. There is a tremendous amount of information in this HANCI case that has not been exposed. I just pray the truth comes out in the trial...I think all who have taken a strong stand in using the Sierra Leone adoptions to cry child trafficking will find there wasn't even an illegal adoption that occurred.
Praying for truth.
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