Category: Transnational Crime

The difference between the illicit trade in infants and legitimate intercountry adoptions is at times difficult to monitor. As Ethan Kapstein writes in Foreign Affairs, “the difference may be clear conceptually, but it is not always clear in reality.”

“Buying infants is illegal covering the cost of raising then until they are adopted is not,” Kapstein writes. ” The distinction between the two can be so obscure, however, that unless parents actually confess to selling their children, adoption and immigration authorities may struggle to prove it.”

To adopt a child on the black market, parents have been reported to have paid between $5,000 to $25,000.

According to reports, Children from Romania were being bought for use in international adoptions for $20,000 to $30,000.

An estimated 9.5 million children in the developing world live in orphanages and are available for international adoptions.