Part 3 of 3
101. Lovelock, supra note 85, at 930–37. Selman mentions that in the early 1990s, Romania became the largest single source of ICA children, with as many as 10,000 ICA adoptees between March 1990 and June 1991, after which the adoptions were halted. By 1995, China and Russia had taken over as major sending nations. Selman, supra note 94, at 213–14.
102. See King, supra note 20, at 432.
103. See Bhabha, supra note 10, at 185 (noting that “[t]oday . . . parental destitution and social and political pressure, rather than death or disappearance, appear to be the prime factors motivating relinquishment [for adoption]”).
104. See Kim, supra note 10, at 856–57 (describing adoptees with “at least one living birth parent” as “‘social orphans,’ who are legally produced and made available for adoption as such”).
105. Edward Said’s Orientalism is generally acknowledged as the founding work of postcolonial studies. Said developed the argument that the Occident needed to create the Orient as the Other, to define itself at the “center.” By accepting the self-referential framework of the West, the post-colonial “Other” remains subordinated to Western paradigms. The West then feels morally validated—if not obligated—to exercise a dominant role in guiding the lesser “Other.” See generally EDWARD W. SAID, ORIENTALISM (1978); EDWARD W. SAID, CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM (1993). Other theorists are also part of the postcolonial tradition, including Frantz Fanon, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Haunani-Kay Trask, Trinh Minh-Ha, and Albert Memmi. See generally FRANTZ FANON, A DYING COLONIALISM (1965); FRANTZ FANON, BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASKS (1967); FRANTZ FANON, THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH (1963); FRANTZ FANON, TOWARD THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION (1967); Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Moving the Center: An Interview with Charles Cantalupo, in THE WORLD OF NGUGI WA THIONG’O 219–20 (Charles Cantalupo ed., 1993); NGUGI WA THIONG’O, DECOLONISING THE MIND: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE IN AFRICAN LITERATURE 4 (1986); CHINUA ACHEBE, THINGS FALL APART (1952); CHINUA ACHEBE, ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH (1987); HAUNANI-KAY TRASK, FROM A NATIVE DAUGHTER: COLONIALISM AND SOVEREIGNTY IN HAWAII 3, 21 (1993); TRINH T. MINH-HA, WOMAN, NATIVE, OTHER 47–76 (1989); ALBERT MEMMI, THE COLONIZER AND THE COLONIZED (1965).
106. The salient features of “Otherness” as summarized by Kenneth B. Nunn are: (1) the other is a means of defining the self; (2) the other is an abstraction; (3) the other cannot define itself; and (4) the other is to be feared and controlled. Kenneth B. Nunn, The Child as Other: Race and Differential Treatment in the Juvenile Justice System, 51 DEPAUL L. REV. 679, 698 (2002).
107. King, supra note 20, at 414.
108. Ratna Kapur writes:
Women in the Third World are portrayed as victims of their culture, which reinforces stereotyped and racist representations of that culture and privileges the culture of the West. In the end, the focus on the victim subject reinforces the depiction of women in the Third World as perpetually marginalized and underprivileged, and has serious implications for the strategies subsequently adopted to remedy the harms that women experience. It encourages some feminists in the international arena to propose strategies which are reminiscent of imperial interventions in the lives of the native subject and which represent the “Eastern” woman as a victim of a “backward” and “uncivilized” culture. Finally, the victim subject and the focus on violence invite remedies and responses from states that have little to do with promoting women’s rights. Thus, a related concern is that the victim subject position has invited protectionist, and even conservative, responses from states. The construction of women exclusively through the lens of violence has triggered a spate of domestic and international reforms focused on the criminal law, which are used to justify state restrictions on women’s rights – for the protection of women. The anti-trafficking campaign, with its focus on violence and victimization, is but one example. Ratna Kapur, The Tragedy of Victimization Rhetoric: Resurrecting the “Native” Subject in International/Post- Colonial Feminist Legal Politics, 15 HARV. HUM. RTS. J. 1, 6 (2002).
109. Smolin notes that:
Americans who are overwhelmed by the poverty and apparent degradation experienced by masses of people in India somehow seem to feel it a noble response to spend between $10,000 and $20,000 adopting an individual child, while leaving behind, in the orphanages, on the streets, and in the villages, tens of millions of similarly situated children. The arbitrariness of selecting an individual child for such rescue, while doing little or nothing for those left behind, does not seem to bother most. The odd effect might be compared to responding to a massive famine by selecting one starving individual for a donated diet of caviar and champagne. Obviously, the cost-effective, rational response to a famine is to erect a feeding station for the masses with low-cost, basic nutrition, not helicopter a few individuals out of the country so they can dine in ethnic restaurants in America. David M. Smolin, The Two Faces of Intercountry Adoption: The Significance of the Indian Adoption Scandals, 35 SETON HALL L. REV. 403, 484–85 (2005); see also Briggs & Marre, supra note 97, at 1 (stating that the contemporary form of intercountry adoption “has been marked by the geographies of unequal power, as children move from poorer countries and families to wealthier ones”).
110. Saunders, supra note 11, at 8.
111. See supra note 93 and accompanying text (referring to the costs of adoption).
112. Graff, supra note 11, at 407.
113. UNICEF, GUIDELINES ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILD VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING 9 (2006),
http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/0610-Unice ... nes_en.pdf (citing Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, art. 3., Dec. 15, 2000, T.I.A.S. No. 13127 and Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, art. 4, Feb. 2, 2008, C.E.T.S. No. 197).
114. Id. (citing Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supra note 113, at art. 3).
115. Id. (citing Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supra note 113, at art. 3; Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 34. Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3.; Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, art. 3, Nov. 19, 2000, 2133 U.N.T.S. 161; and Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, art. 1, May 29, 1993, 32 I.L.M. 1134).
116. Elisabeth M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, The Economics of the Baby Shortage, 7 J. LEGAL STUD. 323 (1978).
117. Posner, supra note 82, at 59, 59–60.
118. Id. at 69.
119. See Smolin, supra note 12, at 127–45.
120. See id. at 127–31, 135–45 (suggesting that poor sending countries begin to face child laundering issues as their intercountry adoption markets grow and citing as an example the child trafficking in Cambodia’s adoption market).
121. Id. at 131.
122. Id. at 128.
123. “Many poor nations also suffer from a high incidence of child trafficking, generally conducted for purposes of sex or labor. Thus, the commodification of children may already be endemic in some of these societies, making it easier for the adoption system to be utilized for such purposes.” Id. at 130 (footnote omitted).
124. See id. at 134–35.
125. Id. at 135.
126. See id. at 175.
127. Id. at 128.
128. Smolin mentions several scenarios of illegality in the acquisition of children that are later legitimized by intercountry adoption, including (a) intermediaries buying children from poor families for amounts ranging from $2,000 to $20,000, (b) citizens directly buying children in poor countries, (c) luring parents into delivering their children under false pretenses to orphanages, hostels or schools (presumptively for their shelter) and processing the children as orphans available for adoption, (d) funneling lost children into trafficking rings instead of reunifying them with their families, and (e) diverse forms of kidnapping where a child is forcibly taken away from their family. Id. at 117–24.
129. As discussed in more detail in Part IV below, in the early 20th century, Western liberal governments adopted a new approach to governance, based on rationalization and research, to address social problems. “Design” or “purposeful social planning and management” became the ethos of Progressive and New Deal reformers and professionals.
130. Smolin, supra note 12, at 175.
131. Id. at 174–200.
132. See Margaret Jane Radin, What, If Anything, Is Wrong with Baby Selling?, 26 PAC. L.J. 135, 139 (1995).
133. For a general discussion of booming illegal trade and its consequence to legal trade in the last decades, see MOISES NAIM, ILLICIT: HOW SMUGGLERS, TRAFFICKERS AND COPYCATS ARE HIJACKING THE GLOBAL ECONOMY (2007).
134. See Smolin, supra note 12, at 124–35.
135. Maskew comments on the rampant trafficking that has accompanied intercountry adoption from Cambodia. Trafficking rings usually involved baby recruiters, baby buyers (intermediaries such as orphanages or others), and false documentation for the child. Scandal in Cambodia led to a moratorium on adoptions from the country. Trish Maskew, Child Trafficking and Intercountry Adoption: The Cambodian Experience, 35 CUMB. L. REV. 619, 633–35 (2005). Smolin comments on the Masha Allen case in which a girl was adopted from Russia for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Smolin, supra note 15, at 18–27. Smolin also covers trafficking scandals in Cambodia, India, and Guatemala related to the selling, buying, “baby farming,” and kidnapping of children. Smolin, supra note 12, at 135–70.
136. Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 21(d), Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3 [hereinafter CRC].
137. Linda J. Olsen, Live or Let Die: Could Intercountry Adoption Make The Difference?, 22 PENN. ST. INT’L L. REV. 483, 507–08 (2004).
138. Kate O’Keeffe, The Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000: The United States’ Ratification of the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children, and its Meager Effect on International Adoption, 40 VAND. J. TRANSNAT’L L. 1611, 1626 (2007).
139. Id.
140. Id.
141. Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, May 29, 1993, 32 I.L.M. 1139; see also O’Keeffe, supra note 138, at 1626.
142. O’Keeffe, supra note 138, at 1626–28.
143. Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. §§ 14901–54 (2006).
144. UNICEF states:
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guides UNICEF’s work, clearly states that every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. Recognising this, and the value and importance of families in children’s lives, UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it, and that alternative means of caring for a child should only be considered when, despite this assistance, a child’s family is unavailable, unable or unwilling to care for him or her. For children who cannot be raised by their own families, an appropriate alternative family environment should be sought in preference to institutional care which should be used only as a last resort and as a temporary measure. Inter-country adoption is one of a range of care options which may be open to children, and for individual children who cannot be placed in a permanent family setting in their countries of origin, it may indeed be the best solution. In each case, the best interests of the individual child must be the guiding principle in making a decision regarding adoption. UNICEF, Statement: UNICEF’s Position on Inter-country Adoption,
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_ 41118.html (last visited Mar. 12, 2012). Similarly, Article 7 of the CRC provides that “[t]he child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.” CRC, supra note 136, at art. 7 (emphasis added). Article 18 provides, “[f]or the purpose of guaranteeing and promoting the rights set forth in the present Convention, States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of children.” Id. at art. 18 (emphasis added).
145. UNICEF, supra note 144. Interestingly, UNICEF’s clear recognition of the importance of maintaining the connection between children and their biological family is also reflected in local Haitian law, which provides a legal obligation to keep all adopted children in connection with their biological family. See Patrice Brizard, Entretien avec Marlene Hofstetter [Interview with Marlene Hofstetter], UNICEF HAITI,
http://www.unicef.org/haiti/french/protection_10388.htm (last visited Nov. 2, 2011) (noting that in Haiti “simple adoption,” in which a child’s ties to her biological parents and family are preserved, is in effect for domestic adoptions and national and international adoptions by Haitians living abroad).
146. See UNICEF, supra note 144 (calling for a prohibition on the inter-country adoption of and for family-tracing efforts for children separated from their families during times of disaster and war).
147. UNICEF states:
The case of children separated from their parents and communities during war or natural disasters merits special mention. It cannot be assumed that such children have neither living parents nor relatives. Even if both their parents are dead, the chances of finding living relatives, a community and home to return to after the conflict subsides exist. Thus, such children should not be considered for inter-country adoption, and family tracing should be the priority. This position is shared by UNICEF, UNHCR, the International Confederation of the Red Cross, and international NGOs such as the Save the Children Alliance. Id. Without tracing efforts, children can be permanently separated from their family.
148. In the case of baby Jenny, she was found severely injured under the rubble of a house, and “assumed to be an orphan,” even renamed by the paramedics and doctors as Patricia. She was immediately taken out of country to Miami for medical attention. Her parents, Nadine Devilme and Junior Alexis, were informed of her removal because she was placed in a registry system. Although her parents had lost all paperwork to prove their parenthood, with the help of pro bono attorneys in the U.S., they were able to provide DNA to show that they were her parents, and were ultimately reunited. Haitian Couple Await Baby’s Return, CNN (Mar. 8, 2010),
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/08/haiti. baby.couple.patricia/index.html?hpt=C1 Annie Butterworth Jones, Attorneys Help Reunite ‘Baby Jenny’ with Her Haitian Family, FLA. BAR NEWS, May 15, 2010.
149. CIA FACTBOOK, supra note 38, at Haiti Economy section; see also GLENN R. SMUCKER & GERALD F. MURRAY, USAID/HAITI MISSION, THE USES OF CHILDREN: A STUDY OF TRAFFICKING IN HAITIAN CHILDREN 14 (2004), available at
http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADF061.pdf.
150. For a thorough analysis of restav`ek/timoun in the context of child trafficking and smuggling, see SMUCKER & MURRAY, supra note 149.
151. Id. at 22.
152. Id. Many studies about Haitian children who live with others and render domestic services use the word “restav`ek.” George Eaton Simpson in his early sociological studies of Haiti likewise used the term “Ti Moune.” George Eaton Simpson, Haiti’s Social Structure, 6 AM. SOC. REV. 640, 648 n.11 (1941) (“A Ti-moune is a peasant child who goes to live with a family in the elite and who performs various kinds of work in return for his meals, clothing, and a place to sleep.”); Roc´ıo G. Sumillera, Postcolonialism and Translation, 4 NEW VOICES IN TRANSLATION STUD. 26 (2008).
153. BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, & LABOR, U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, 2010 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT: HAITI 22, available at
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/20 ... 154509.htm.
154. SMUCKER & MURRAY, supra note 149, at 16–17.
155. Id. at 17.
156. Id.
157. Id. For a discussion of the more precarious condition of girl restav`eks and their higher vulnerability to sexual violence, see Benedetta Faedi, The Double Weakness of Girls: Discrimination and Sexual Violence in Haiti, 44 STAN. J. INT’L L. 147, 169–70 (2008).
158. SMUCKER & MURRAY, supra note 149, at 17–18.
159. Id. at 22.
160. Id. at 23.
161. Id. at 33.
162. See David Gauthier-Villars et al., Earthquake Exposes Haiti’s Faulty Adoption System, WALL ST. J., (Feb. 27, 2010),
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 5211953493 84.html.
163. George Eaton Simpson, Sexual and Familial Institutions in Northern Haiti, 44 AM. ANTHROPOLOGIST 655, 666 (1942).
164. Simpson, supra note 152, at 640.
165. Id. at 645.
166. Id. at 647.
167. Id. at 648.
168. Simpson, supra note 163, at 667; see also Chantal Collard, Triste terrain de jeu: A` propos de l’adoption internationale [A Sad Playground: On International Adoptions], 1 GRADHIVA 209, ¶ 14 (2005), available at
http://gradhiva.revues.org/367#tocto1n1 (noting that historically the relationships formed through timoun have been key to the survival of poor families).
169. “Professor Herskovits bases his conclusion upon extensive field research in West Africa, Dutch Guiana, Haiti, and the United States, and is no doubt correct in maintaining that the tradition of adoption is an important part of the Ti-moune system.” Simpson, supra note 163, at 666–67.
170. Rhoda Metraux, Affiliations Through Work in Marbial, Haiti, 25 PRIMITIVE MAN 1, 6 (1952). In well-to-do families [. . .] there is more work than the family, however large, can manage or is willing to undertake. In these households one finds collected younger and poorer kin, servants, assistants and hangers-on who contribute work for their keep; some work seasonally, some all year round. It is the heads of such households who are the notables of the neighborhood and who are the employers of larger groups of workers outside the family. Id.
171. SMUCKER & MURRAY, supra note 149, at 26.
172. Id. at 22.
173. Id. at 26–27.
174. See id. at 13 (noting the importance of these values). One of the primary reasons to send children to cities is the lack of adequate schools in rural areas. Id. at 13–14, 26, 31.
175. The practice is mostly rejected as outdated and inhumane by the country’s elite. Id. at 29–30. The need for household labor among the poor is hardly frivolous. Less than 30 percent of households in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area have running water. In the city’s teeming slums, water is sold by the bucket, and the unit cost of water is far higher in poor neighborhoods than more affluent areas. Throughout Haiti the traditional carriers of water are women and children, especially children. In Haiti’s urban slums, water from public fountains or broken pipes is supplied by a veritable army of young children, including large numbers of timoun servant children. Id. at 29.
176. Timothy T. Schwartz, Subsistence Songs: Haitian T´eat Performances, Gendered Capital, and Livelihood Strategies in Jean Makout, Haiti, 81 NEW W. INDIAN GUIDE 6, 25 (2007); see also Collard, supra note 168, ¶ 14 (noting the formation of alliances between the wealthier families that sponsor restav`ek chil- dren and the poor families who provide those children).
177. See TONE SOMMERFELT ET AL., FAFO INST. FOR APPLIED INT’L STUDIES, CHILD DOMESTIC LABOUR IN HAITI: CHARACTERISTICS, CONTEXTS AND ORGANISATION OF CHILDREN’S RESIDENCE, RELOCATION AND WORK 64, 75, 88 (Tone Sommerfelt ed., 2002), available at
http://www.fafo.no/ais/other/ haiti/childlabour/EEDH_Report_draft_english.pdf.
178. See id. at 58, 65.
179. See id. at 69.
180. See id. at 44, 58–62.
181. TIMOTHY T. SCHWARTZ, FEWER MEN, MORE BABIES: SEX, FAMILY, AND FERTILITY IN HAITI 165 (2009).
182. See id.; SOMMERFELT ET AL., supra note 177, at 88.
183. See SOMMERFELT ET AL., supra note 177, at 71–72.
184. Id. at 65; SCHWARTZ, supra note 181, at 165.
185. SOMMERFELT ET AL., supra note 177, at 68, 71–73, 75–76.
186. Id. at 63, 75–76.
187. See id. at 60.
188. See id. at 60, 62.
189. Id. at 72.
190. See id. at 46–47 (providing an account of a former Haitian child domestic who has maintained ties to her mother and other relatives); id. at 70–71 (relating the personal account of a Haitian mother who placed her daughters into a timoun arrangement and visits them occasionally taking food provisions).
191. Claudia Fonseca, Inequality Near and Far: Adoption as Seen from the Brazilian Favelas, 36 LAW & SOC’Y REV. 397, 404–12 (2002); see also Andr´ea Cardarello, The Movement of the Mothers of the Courthouse Square: “Legal Child Trafficking,” Adoption and Poverty in Brazil, 14 J. LATIN AM. & CARIBB. ANTHROP. 140, 146 (2009) (describing child circulation customs among poor Brazilian communities).
192. Cardarello, supra note 191, at 146–51.
193. Fonseca, supra note 191, at 423–27.
194. Shani M. King, U.S. Immigration Law and the Traditional Nuclear Conception of Family: Toward a Functional Definition of Family That Protects Children’s Fundamental Human Rights, 41 COLUM. HUM. RTS. L. REV. 509, 515 (2010). For a broader discussion, see id. at 515–25.
195. Simpson, supra note 163, at 667. The author concludes that: The value or harm in the institution of the Ti-moune would seem to depend upon the character of the adopting families. Some of these persons treat the children who come to live with them in an exemplary manner, others get the maximum profit from their Ti-mounes and handle them as if they were beasts of burden. Id.
196. References to restav`ek are merged into a general discussion of the worst forms of child labor, which also includes sex exploitation and indentured work. U.S. DEP’T OF LABOR, 2008 FINDINGS ON THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR – HAITI (2009), available at
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4aba3edac.html. For another interpretation of restav`ek as an exploitative form of child labor, see Campaign Against Child Slavery in Haiti, BEYOND BORDERS,
http://www.beyondborders.net/WhatWeDo/ EndingChildSlavery.aspx (last visited Oct. 29, 2011); see also Marian Wright Edelman, Haiti’s Restav`ek Children: The Child Servitude Crisis, CHANGE.ORG (Mar. 29, 2011),
http://humantrafficking.change.org/ blog/view/haitis_restavk_children_the_child_servitude_crisis; Carmen Russell & Dane Liu, 20/20: Restav`eks: Child Slaves of Haiti (ABC television broadcast Jan. 15, 2010), available at
http://www.pulitzercenter. org/video/restaveks-child-slaves-haiti; JEAN CADET RESTAV`EK FOUND., Mission Statement,
http://www.restav`ekfreedom.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.page&id=1026 (last visited Oct. 29, 2011) (characterizing the restav`ek system as “child slavery” in the organization’s mission statement).
197. The intention of exploitation need not be of the parent, but of the smuggler or trafficker. UNICEF acknowledges that children in the developing world work at home or in family businesses, or outside the home as apprentices, which may imply a commercial benefit or exposure to hazards. The greatest concern is over situations in which children lack a protective social or legal network as workers in exploitative conditions. MIKE DOTTRIDGE & LIZ STUART, UNICEF, END CHILD EXPLOITATION: CHILD LABOUR TODAY 26–27 (2005). To that effect, UNICEF defines child trafficking in the following way: Child trafficking happens when a child is moved from one place to another—within a country or across a border—into a situation in which they are exploited, and this exploitation can take many different forms. The movement part of the trafficking ‘event’ accompanied by the action of someone who intends to exploit the child for profit is essential to the difference between child trafficking and migration into child labour. The movement away from home, local community, support and safety mechanisms into an environment where the child is isolated and manipulated by others greatly increases the child’s vulnerability and makes child trafficking a particularly despicable crime and a violation of their rights. Where legal migration channels are closed, difficult to take or not known to people who want to migrate for work, then illegal migration, people smuggling and human trafficking are more likely to happen. Keeping migration channels open and helping people to use them in a regular, safe and easy way is an important step in preventing illegal migration, smuggling and trafficking. Exploitation is the other essential part of child trafficking. Trafficking is always made up of both movement and (the intention of) exploitation. If there is only movement and no (intent of) exploitation, then this is not trafficking. If there is exploitation but no movement, then this is not trafficking either. JUNE KANE & HANS VAN DE GLIND, UNICEF, TRAINING MANUAL TO FIGHT TRAFFICKING IN CHILDREN FOR LABOUR, SEXUAL AND OTHER FORMS OF EXPLOITATION: UNDERSTANDING CHILD TRAFFICKING 16–17 (2010).
198. DOTTRIDGE & STUART, supra note 197, at 26–27.
199. See UNICEF, At a Glance: Haiti - Background,
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/haiti_ 2014.html (last visited Oct. 29, 2011).
200. SMUCKER & MURRAY, supra note 149, at 5, 24. Specifically, Smucker and Murray found [N]o literal evidence of child enslavement, defined in terms of buying and selling children as private property; however, there is ample evidence of systematic child abuse in the recruitment and use of restav`ek children as domestic servants. Some reports angrily label these arrangements as slavery. Those who describe the restav`ek child as a slave child are doubtless demonstrating human concern for the welfare of the child; however, such children are not literally slaves. The Haitian restav`ek child can legally run away or be taken back by his or her parents without payment of ransom or manumission. The term slavery is perhaps useful as an inflammatory metaphor for purposes of advocacy, but it fails to capture the Haitian meaning of the word even when used as an epithet. When Haitians say the restav`ek child is like a ti esklav, they are using the word slave in a metaphorical sense, similar to calling a demanding foreman a “slave driver” in English. The restav`ek child is an abused child but not a slave child. The concept of “unpaid domestic servant” is less dramatic but captures the reality much more accurately. Id. at 24.
201. Id. at 5.
202. Id. at 28.
203. KANE & VAN DE GLIND, supra note 197, at 23.
204. Id. at 23–25 (listing various “poverty plus” factors).
205. A demographic article about Haiti states the following:
A country earlier renowned for the beauty of its landscape, Haiti has faced fierce exploitation of natural resources by successive foreign occupations and predatory dictatorships. Ongoing political instability has contributed to a sharp decline of agricultural productivity and widespread poverty. In addition, the impact of climate change is particularly salient in Haiti, exacerbated by deforestation and severe soil erosion throughout the country. The destruction caused by the 2010 earthquake adds to that of major storms and hurricanes in 2004 and 2008. These events had already caused huge infrastructural damages in other parts of Haiti and deeply affected the country’s economy. BEATRICE DAUMERIE & KAREN HARDEE, POPULATION ACTION INT’L, THE EFFECTS OF A VERY YOUNG AGE STRUCTURE ON HAITI: COUNTRY CASE STUDY 2 (2010), available at
http://www.populationaction. org/Publications/Report/The_Shape_of_Things_to_Come_Haiti/SOTC_Haiti.pdf. In 2004, youth gangs played a major role in the violent revolt that forced Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the first democratically elected president of Haiti since the dictatorship, into exile. After that, despite the presence of UN peacekeeping troops and an improved security situation, state institutions remained fragile and armed violence was still widespread in some parts of the capital. Some have described it as a “war” of confrontations between rival gangs as well as between gangs and the UN stabilization forces, with civilians as innocent targets. In Portau- Prince, particularly in the slums, more than 30 different gangs were trying to control different parts of the city, using kidnapping and drug trafficking as sources of revenue. . . . After 30 years of dictatorship, Haiti experienced three coups d’´etat and fifteen changes of government in the eight years between 1986 and 1994. Since then, Haiti has witnessed a succession of political crises, and as recently as spring 2008, hunger riots caused by the rise in global food prices led to the collapse of the government. Id. at 6–7. The median age of the population is 20 years, and almost 70 percent of Haiti’s people are under age 30. [. . .] In a 30-year historical analysis, the report found that countries with very young and youthful age structures—those in which 60 percent or more of the population is younger than age 30—are the most likely to face outbreaks of civil conflict and autocratic governance. While the relationship between age structure and instability is not one of simple cause and effect, demographics can play an important role in mitigating or exacerbating a country’s prospects for development and the well-being of its people. Id. at 2.
206. Sokoloff states that the institutions of placing out were brought by the Puritans to the new continent, introducing concepts such as the almshouse and indenture as means of raising children. “These means of caring for dependent children, however, became inadequate to meet the need by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The industrial revolution and massive immigration produced numbers of dependent children which overwhelmed the existing system.” Sokoloff, supra note 79, at 18.
207. ELLEN HERMAN, KINSHIP BY DESIGN: A HISTORY OF ADOPTION IN THE MODERN UNITED STATES 2 (2008). This section relies heavily on Herman’s research. However, for a briefer work covering the same history of adoption, see Sokoloff, supra note 79. For a more specific discussion of adoption acts in the early nineteenth century, see Chris Guthrie & Joanna L. Grossman, Adoption in the Progressive Era: Preserving, Creating, and Re-Creating Families, 43 AM. J. LEGAL HIST. 235 (1999).
208. HERMAN, supra note 207, at 23.
209. Id. at 22.
210. Id. at 23. “36 percent [of indentured children] were eventually adopted, and those children indentured at young ages were far more likely to become legal members of the families in which they were placed. More than half of the adoptees had been indentured before age one.” There were also (rare) “free homes” which provided care without charge. Id. For further discussion of private contracts resulting in adoption practices, see also Amanda C. Pustilnik, Private Ordering, Legal Ordering, and the Getting of Children: A Counterhistory of Adoption Law, 20 YALE L. & POL’Y REV. 263 (2002).
211. HERMAN, supra note 207, at 24. Herman reports that the “[t]ypical reasons that mothers offered for needing placement included ‘got to go work,’ ‘salary too small to keep house & care for them properly,’ and ‘have no one to take care of children while I am working,’” id. at 25, or “so to bridge over this rough place in . . . life,” id. at 24.
212. “Baby farming” or the “boarding of infants for money and their transfer and sale for profit” reflected “informal child care networks of single mothers and other laboring women,” such as “unwed mothers, prostitutes, domestic servants, and destitute or deserted wives forced to work for wages.” “Baby farming” was widely critiqued for being conducive to abusive conditions of child care driven by profit. However, “baby farming” comprised the child care networks available to the poorest of women. Id. at 32–39.
213. Id. at 9–10.
214. Id. at 9–11.
215. Id. at 87. “Designing American kinship was tantamount to managing American communities and culture because ‘the child is the bridge—biologically and socially—to the future.’” Id. “All American families were involved in the awesome project of social progress and reconstruction, whether they knew it or not.” Id.
216. Id. at 121. “Kinship by design promised that a combination of expanded state power, professional oversight, psychological interpretation, and empirical research would lessen the dangers of adoption and make it more secure and authentic.” Id.
217. See id. at 10–14.
218. Id. at 285.
219. Id. at 15.
220. Id. at 108–09.
221. See id. at 121–38.
222. Id. at 15, 94–95.
223. Id. at 14.
224. Id. The difference between open and closed adoptions has been described in the following terms: In some jurisdictions, in what is sometimes known as an “open” adoption, the natural mother may select the adoptive parents for her child. In the case of a “closed” adoption, the relinquishing parent surrenders his or her rights to unknown parties. “Open” adoptions have also been described as adoptions in which the court supplements an order of adoption with a provision directing that the adopted child have continuing contacts and visitation with members of his or her biological family; such adoptions have been specifically rejected by some courts, in the absence of legislative authority thereof. 2 AM. JUR. 2d Adoption § 2 (2004); see also Naomi Cahn, Perfect Substitutes or the Real Thing, 52 DUKE L.J. 1077, 1151 (“Only recently have states begun to recognize the validity and enforceability of openadoption agreements.”). Sokoloff mentions that the 1917 Minnesota Act began the sealing of records, at first to protect the adoption procedure from scrutiny, and later, at the insistence of caseworkers to protect the identity of the parties in consideration that many children placed for adoption were illegitimate, which carried a high negative social stigma. Not until after 1950, with the surge of activism against closed records, did open adoptions reemerge. Sokoloff, supra note 79, at 21–22, 24.
225. HERMAN, supra note 207, at 139.
226. This became a debate known as “nature or nurture.” Id.
227. Id. at 139–143.
228. Id. at 139 (stating that the advantages of standardization were highlighted by baby-selling scandals).
229. Standardization never succeeded fully because of (1) too few agencies, (2) regulatory loopholes that allowed parents to shop jurisdictions, (3) alternative market-based practices abounded, based also on a belief in privacy, and (4) the regulating professionals themselves began to doubt the value of standardization. Id. at 153; see generally id. at 147–53. Commercial operations of adoption thrived in the face of standardization. Id. at 222–27. The standard of adoptability of children was expanded across race, age, and disability lines. Id. at 196–201. Eligibility standards for parents changed quickly after the 1950s. Id. at 202–05.
230. Id. at 246–52.
231. See id. at 196–204.
232. For example, Herman describes a practice of de facto informal adoption where African Americans . . . routinely took in the children of friends and relatives because of divorce, separation, desertion, illegitimacy, death, migration, and the fact that childless couples lacked the social standing that came only with children. . . . At midcentury Mildred Arnold of the USBC wrote that “there are many Negro families who have ‘adopted’ children for all intents and purposes but who have not taken any legal steps to accomplish this.”
Clearly, African Americans responded to children in need. In large families where membership was fluid, distinctions between natural and adopted kin were not accentuated.” Id. at 231.
233. Id. at 204–15, 230–46.
234. Herman gives the following example:
In the case of race, and especially blackness, the era of openness to difference that dawned in the adoption world of the late 1960s coincided with a powerful force moving in the opposite direction: a turn toward nationalism in the civil rights movement and an embrace of “roots” that reaffirmed the naturalness of sameness and continuity of identity. In 1972 the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) issued a strongly worded statement that took “a vehement stand against the placements of black children in white homes for any reason,” calling transracial adoption “unnatural,” “artificial,” “unnecessary,” and proof that African Americans continued to be assigned to “chattel status” . . . . It was, according to an NABSW position paper, “a form of genocide” comparable to the slave trade. Id. at 249; see also Patricia K. Jennings, The Trouble with the Multiethnic Placement Act: An Empirical Look at Transracial Adoption, 49 SOC. PERSP. 559 (2006). Likewise, the Indian Adoption Project (1958-1967), which placed Native American children into white families, simultaneously faced outrage from white racists and accusations as a genocidal policy. HERMAN, supra note 207, at 239–42.
235. Herman cites studies from 1947 that reveal that the “success” rate in adoptions in terms of child adjustment remained unchanged since the 1920s despite the major systemic overhaul. HERMAN, supra note 207, at 190–91.
236. Id. at 154. Measured against historical traditions that sheltered personal decisions from public interference and elevated idiosyncratic preferences over expert evaluations, kinship by design appears as part of a profound intellectual and cultural revolution in private life. By moving childhood and kinship into the public sphere, prying a significant measure of power away from parents, and transferring decisions previously considered beyond the legitimate reach of state power to representatives of government and allied helping professionals, kinship by design altered how children were acquired and families made. Id.
237. See, e.g., Elizabeth Kolsky, A Note on the Study of Indian Legal History, 23 LAW & HIST. REV. 703, 704–05 (2005) (connecting the rule of law’s discriminatory and exclusionary operation in colonial India to similar phenomena in contemporary liberal states and discussing the “idea that different groups of people can be legally differentiated and thereby granted greater and lesser legal privileges even by a liberal state founded on the rule of law”); Robert W. Gordon, Morton Horwitz and His Critics: A Conflict of Narratives, 37 TULSA L. REV. 915, 922 (2002) (countering the perspective that the rule of law is an “unqualified human good” and “a great western institution that limits the rulers as well as the ruled” with the opposing argument that “[t]he formalist view of the rule of law . . . always conceals inequalities of wealth and power under a fa¸cade of formal equality, and delegitimates attempts to remedy such inequalities”); Cheryl I. Harris, Equal Treatment and the Reproduction of Inequality, 69 FORDHAM L. REV. 1753, 1762 (2001) (stating that law in the United States “indirectly structured racial identities through the ‘rule of law’ of the liberal polity where the values of neutrality and objectivity were enshrined more broadly and racial inequality was rationalized and legitimated”).
238. Herman notes that “[t]he adoption research enterprise had been transformed since 1924. Outcomes had not.” HERMAN, supra note 207, at 189–90.
239. The following description is helpful:
When entering foster care, or the “child welfare system,” a child does not enter a single system, but rather multiple systems that intersect and interact to create a safety net for children who cannot remain with their birth parents. State and local child welfare agencies, courts, private service providers, and public agencies that administer other government programs (such as public assistance or welfare, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment), and Medicaid all play critical roles in providing supports and services to children and families involved with foster care. Indeed, families often find themselves juggling the requirements and paperwork of multiple systems. Child welfare agencies are central to the system, but their policies and practices vary significantly from state to state. . . . The organization of child welfare agencies also varies significantly across states. . . . In every state, the courts also play a significant role in child welfare cases, from the initial decision to remove a child to the development of a permanency plan to the decision to return a child home or terminate parental rights and make the child available for adoption. . . . Each party involved in a foster care case—the birth parents, the child, and the government—is represented by a different attorney. . . . [T]he adversarial nature of legal advocacy can at times sharpen conflict between the various parties. Many jurisdictions rely on volunteer court appointed special advocates (CASAs) to ensure that children in foster care have a voice in the legal decision-making process. . . . Currently more than 900 CASA programs operate in 45 states, and more than 250,000 children have been assigned CASAs. Private agencies, typically through contracts with public agencies, provide a significant proportion of foster care services to children and families. The use of private agencies to provide services such as family-based foster care goes back to the very origins of child welfare in the United States. Some states, such as Kansas, have privatized nearly all of their foster care services, whereas others rely on a mix of public and private service providers. . . . To assure the best outcomes for children, all of the agencies in the system must work together. Each must rely on the others to provide the necessary information and resources. . . . But currently no overarching mechanism for governing the system or managing resources exists. Instead, most agencies have established either formal or informal cooperative agreements. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 7–8.
240. Id. at 6. On the placement of children with kin, see Rob Geen, The Evolution of Kinship Care Policy and Practice, 14 FUT. CHILD. 130 (2004).
241. Jones provides a brief discussion of developmental problems associated with child “maltreatment.” Jones, supra note 14, at 34.
242. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) defines maltreatment as “[a]ny act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child.” CTRS. FOR DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION, CHILD MALTREATMENT SURVEILLANCE: UNIFORM DEFINITIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH AND RECOMMENDED DATA ELEMENTS, VERSION 1.0, at 11 (2008) (emphasis omitted). In this definition, commission refers to deliberate or intentional words or actions that have the consequence of causing harm to a child. Id. Omissions are “[t]he failure to provide for a child’s basic physical, emotional, or educational needs or to protect a child from harm or potential harm.” Id. Caregiver is “a person, or people, who at the time of the maltreatment is in a permanent (primary caregiver) or temporary (substitute caregiver) custodial role. In a custodial role, the person is responsible for care and control of the child and for the child’s overall health and welfare.” Id. at 12 (emphasis omitted).
243. Harm is defined as:
[a]ny acute disruption caused by the threatened or actual acts of commission or omission to a child’s physical or emotional health (ISPCAN 2003). Disruptions can affect the child’s physical, cognitive, or emotional development. Threat of harm occurs when a parent or caregiver expresses an intention or gives signs or warnings through the use of words, gestures, or weapons to communicate the likelihood of inflicting harm to the child. Threat of harm can be explicit or implicit. Explicit threats would include such acts as pointing a gun at the child or raising a hand as if to strike the child. Implicit threats would include such acts as kicking holes in walls or breaking down doors. Disruption of physical health includes, but is not exclusive to, physical injuries, avoidable illnesses, and inadequate nutrition. Id. at 12.
244. 17.8 percent was the median for physical abuse, 9.5 percent was the median for sexual abuse, 7.6 percent was the median for psychological maltreatment, and 2.4 percent was the median for medical neglect; these percentages add up to more than 100 percent “because a child may have suffered more than one type of maltreatment.” U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., ADMIN. FOR CHILDREN & FAMILIES, CHILDREN’S BUREAU, CHILD MALTREATMENT 2009, at 23 (2010), available at
http://www. acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm09/cm09.pdf#page=13. Neglect can exist alongside other forms of maltreatment. It is the principal form of maltreatment. Recurrence of child maltreatment is also more likely to involve neglect rather than physical or sexual abuse. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 6.
245. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 14. In a context of poverty in the United States, parents face a heightened “multitude of complex and interrelated life challenges such as mental illness, unemployment, substance abuse, and domestic violence.” Id. at 6, 14. On this issue, see also Twila L. Perry, The Transracial Adoption Controversy: An Analysis of Discourse and Subordination, 21 N.Y.U. REV. L. & SOC. CHANGE 33, 56 n.97 (1993).
246. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 14. For more on the relationship between poverty and racial over- representation in the child welfare system, see also SUSAN CHIBNALL ET AL., CHILDREN OF COLOR IN CHILD WELFARE: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CHILD WELFARE COMMUNITY 19–24 (2003), available at
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/ab ... index.html.
247. In 2003, African-American children were reported as being overrepresented in foster care at nearly three times their numbers in the population, with some states as high as five times the population rate. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 14. American-Indian children were represented at nearly double their rate in the general population, and Latino children slightly underrepresented, “but the number of Latino children in foster care has nearly doubled over the last decade.” Id. In 2006, the disproportionate representation of children from the same minorities continued. U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., ADMIN. FOR CHILDREN & FAMILIES, CHILDREN’S BUREAU, CHILD WELFARE OUTCOMES: 2003–2006, at ii, 5–8, available at
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cwo03-06.
248. In 2006, overrepresentation of African-American children was one and one-half times greater than their numbers in the population of 31 states, with this percentage being two and one-half times greater in five states (Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming). U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH VS., supra note 247, at 7–8. In seven states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah), Hispanic children were overrepresented by one and one-half times their numbers in the child population. Id. In 16 States, the percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native child victims was at least one and one-half times greater than the percentage of these children in the State’s population. . . . In 6 of these 16 States, the percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native child victims was more than three times greater than the percentage of these children in the State’s population (Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington). Id. at ii, 8. In no states were white children overrepresented. Id. at 12.
249. E.g., Kathleen Wells & Shenyang Guo, Reunification of Foster Children Before and After Welfare Reform, 78 SOC. SERV. REV. 74, 90–91 (2004).
250. Cf. supra notes 203–204 and accompanying text (discussing how UNICEF articulates the relationship between “poverty plus” factors and child placement).
251. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 8. By 2001, 540,000 children were in foster care at any one time. Id. at 6. For a discussion of figures from 2006, see U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS., supra note 247, at ii.
252. Christopher A. Swann & Michelle Sheran Sylvester, The Foster Care Crisis: What Caused Caseloads to Grow?, 43 DEMOGRAPHY 309, 309 (2006).
[O]ur findings clearly identify a strong association between female incarcerations and foster care caseloads. This result is important because, although child welfare administrators are aware of increases in the number of children of incarcerated parents needing out-of-home placement, few have specific policies for dealing with the special needs of this growing cohort of foster children. It is likely that much of the growth in incarcerations is due to the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which imposed mandatory minimum sentences and shifted sentencing power from federal judges to prosecutors. Following this legislation, the number of women incarcerated for drug offenses rose by 888% between 1986 and 1996, compared with a 129% increase in non-drug-related offenses during the same. Moreover, the average imposed prison term for those convicted of a drug-related offense increased from 62 months in 1986 to 74 months in 1999, and actual time served increased from 30 months to 66 months over the same period. . . .
Turning to the role of welfare policy, consistent with previous literature, our results suggest that AFDC/TANF benefit levels are significantly associated with foster care caseloads. Lower welfare benefit levels may increase foster care caseloads for three reasons. First, to the extent that recipients are not working, lower welfare benefits decrease family income and increase the likelihood that children are maltreated and/or reported to child welfare officials. Second, lower welfare payments may induce relative caregivers to become formally involved with the foster care system in order to qualify for foster care maintenance payments. Finally, foster care may be a direct substitute for welfare. There is evidence of substantial movement from the AFDC/TANF program to out-of-home care. Using data from California, Illinois, and North Carolina, Goerge found that the majority (60%) of entrants into foster care come from AFDC. Similarly, Bitler, Gelbach, and Hoynes found that welfare reform is associated with a large increase in the probability that black children live in households with neither parent present, and Johnson and Waldfogel showed that children with incarcerated mothers are more likely to be in foster care if their mothers received public assistance prior to being incarcerated. Id. at 329 (citations omitted).
253. Jennings, supra note 234, at 578. Jennings observes, “advocates and opponents alike down- played the way that race intersects with gender and class to shape dominant adoption policies and practices.” Id. at 563. She also suggests that where transracial adoption is the best option, adoption policy must include educational strategies to overcome racial privilege. See id. at 578.
254. See Christina White, Federally Mandated Destruction of the Black Family: The Adoption and Safe Families Act, 1 Nw. J.L. & SOC. POL’Y 303 (2006) (arguing that ASFA oppresses and devalues the autonomy of black families).
255. King, supra note 15, at 612; see also JUDITH S. MODELL, A SEALED AND SECRET KINSHIP: THE CULTURE OF POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN AMERICAN ADOPTION 76 (2002) (stating that ASFA “transforms adoption . . . into a child-rescuing operation”).
256. In the exceptional cases where reunification is not advised, the goal becomes to place the child through adoption or to assign a legal guardian. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 6.
257. Id. at 7.
258. Id.
259. See King, supra note 15, at 612–13; MODELL, supra note 255, at 79, 96 (noting the class and racial biases implicit in ASFA and citing the financial costs of “rehabilitating collapsing birth families” as a basis for ASFA’s emphasis on adoptions).
260. Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
261. Id.; see also MODELL, supra note 255, at 96 (stating that ASFA “draws the state further into intervention in parent-child relationships”).
262. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 9.
263. Id.
When the state assumes custody of a child, in effect the government is stating that it can do a better job of protecting and providing for this child than his or her birth parents can. When children are placed in foster care only to suffer additional harm, it undermines the rationale for government intervention and is an egregious violation of the public trust. For this reason, as Badeau writes in this journal issue, the first principle of the child welfare system should be to do no harm. Id.
264. Jones notes that:
[R]esearch on foster care suggests that a significant proportion of foster families have parenting difficulties, which may hinder their capacity to provide stable experiences for foster children. Although the experience is not commonplace, foster children are also maltreated by their foster parents. The association between problematic parenting behaviors and the socialemotional maladjustment of foster children has been documented in several studies. Jones, supra note 14, at 40.
265. Id. at 36–38.
266. Id. at 38.
Attachment disorders, which lead to the most problematic outcomes for children, include those in which children have disrupted attachments to their caregivers, display overly vigilant or overly compliant behaviors, show indiscriminate connection to every adult, or do not demonstrate attachment behaviors to any adult. Children with insecure, “disordered” or “disorganized” attachments may also have many other adverse outcomes that persist throughout childhood, such as poor peer relationships, behavioral problems, or other mental health difficulties. Id. at 34.
267. Id. at 39.
268. Id. at 38.
269. The average time a child stays in foster care is 33 months, with variations on both ends: 38 percent of the foster care children who exited in 2001 stayed 11 months or less in the system, while 32 percent had been in the system for 3 years or more. Bass et al., supra note 13, at 7. Jones also notes that displacement or disruption rates are related, besides time in foster care, to “the age of the foster child, and the functioning of the foster child (for example, mental health).” Jones, supra note 14, at 38.
270. U.S. DEP’T OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVS, supra note 247, at 29.
271. See Bhahba, supra note 10, at 185 (describing poverty as a principal reason that parents relin- quish their children for international adoption); Bass et al., supra note 13, at 5–6, 14 (citing poverty as the main cause of children being placed into foster care).
272. See generally King, supra note 20.
273. For the discussion of the Silsby case, see supra Introduction, Part I. For the discussion of U.S. foster care, see supra Part IV.
274. See Cardarello, supra note 191, at 146 (discussing child placement customs that address the circumstances of the Brazilian poor).
275. See supra Part III (discussing timoun); supra Part IV.A (discussing kinship by design and customary child placement practices in the United States).
276. See Smolin, supra note 12, at 127 (discussing the need for the intercountry adoption system to provide birth families with aid that can preserve their families); King, supra note 15, at 612–14 (dis- cussing the need for the U.S. child welfare system to promote family reunification and preservation).
277. See Smolin, supra note 12, at 175 (stating that the intercountry adoption system lacks trans- parency and accountability); Smolin, supra note 15, at 27 (challenging the perception that international adoption is “an inherent and essential good that always saves and never harms . . . children”).
278. THE LAMP FOR HAITI FOUND. ET AL., “WE’VE BEEN FORGOTTEN”: CONDITIONS IN HAITI’S DISPLACEMENT CAMPS EIGHT MONTHS AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE 2 (2010),
http://ijdh.org/wordpress/ wp-content/uploads/2010/09/IDP-Report-09.23.10-compressed.pdf.
279. Haiti Cholera Outbreak Spreads: Aid Groups Fighting to Keep Cholera from Reaching Camps of Haiti Earthquake Survivors in Port-au-Prince, GUARDIAN (U.K.) (Oct. 24, 2010),
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2010/oct/24/haiti-cholera-outbreak-spreads. Scientists posit that the cholera outbreak has less to do with sanitation conditions post earthquake, and more to do with the rising sea temperatures, increased water salinity, and an algae bloom in Haiti that provides optimum conditions for cholera bacteria to thrive. See Richard Knox, Earthquake Not to Blame for Cholera Outbreak in Haiti, NAT’L PUB. RADIO, Oct. 26, 2010,
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/10 ... d-nothing- to-do-with-cholera-outbreak-haiti. However, alternative explanations are also offered. See Jonathan M. Katz, UN Probes Base as Source of Haiti Cholera Outbreak, SEATTLE TIMES (Oct. 27, 2010), http:// seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2013276274_apcbhaitidiseaseoutbreak.html.
