The Akron Legal News

Bill designed to thwart ‘child trading’

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: October 28, 2014

David Phillips, Union County prosecuting attorney, has supports a House bill that would eliminate “child trading” — adopted children sent to other, unknown, families.

“Children should not be traded in Ohio,” he said, adding that this phenomenon wasn’t initially on his radar.

“There is, it seems, an underground market for children. These children are adopted, sometimes from overseas. The adoptive parents then, for whatever reason, do not want or regret adopting the child.”

Ultimately, Phillips said the children are treated as chattel and moved from home to home.

“The Internet provides bulletin boards and websites devoted to this practice,” he said.

“Yahoo! shut down a message board which Reuters News Service later analyzed. Reuters found that, on average, a new child was advertised for rehoming once a week.”

In these situations, Phillips said the needs of adults are placed before the needs of children.

“There is no oversight and little regulation,” he said.

“Giving away a child in America can be surprisingly easy. Legal adoptions must be handled through the courts and prospective parents must be vetted but there are ways around such oversight.”

Phillips said children can be sent to new families quickly through a basic power of attorney document — a notarized statement declaring the child to be in the care of another adult.

“In many cases, this flexibility is good for the child,” he said. “It allows parents experiencing hard times to send their kids to stay with a trusted relative, for instance. But with the rise of the Internet, parents are increasingly able to find complete strangers willing to take in unwanted children.”

House Bill 438, jointly sponsored by Reps. Dorothy Pelanda, R-Marysville, and Cheryl Grossman, R-Grove City, would require that school districts, medical personnel, government service providers and other mandated reporters promptly notify county public children services agencies, in writing, with the name and address of any child named in a temporary physical care power of attorney or other document presented for school registration, medical care or other services.

Upon receipt of such written notice, the county public children services agency would have to conduct an evaluation of the temporary placement with the attorney in fact, including criminal background check, court record check for any child-related civil proceedings and home safety study.

According to the bill, the public children services agency would treat the filing of a temporary physical care power of attorney as an allegation that the child is a dependent youth.

If enacted, Pelanda said HB 438 would successfully identify rehoming situations, address child safety and involve the juvenile court system when necessary to determine the future best interests of a child.

Grossman said rehoming appears to a relatively new concept in the world of human trafficking.

“I was first introduced to this concept by a constituent when it was discovered that a minor girl was living with a family that was not biologically her own,” she said.

“One of the so-called parents allegedly had problems with integrating the girl into their family, so she was placed on a plane to another state where her legally adoptive parents lived. All that this young girl had in her possession were the clothes on her back. She did not know who would be at the airport to pick her up. She was scared.”

Grossman said the individuals involved in such situations are essentially going around the adoption process with no government or adoption agency involvement.

“It is critical that we find a solution to this issue,” she said. “Children are going underground by averting a state or adoption agency.”

Phillips said an alleged rehoming took place in his county below the radar.

In addition to himself, he said children’s protective services “had no idea” and that the director of jobs and family services had never heard of the practice.

“Ohio is a signatory to the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. That compact deals with children placed across state lines to protect childrens’ rights,” he said.

“Unfortunately, that compact is often ignored and the language of the compact appears to limit itself to the application of children who are placed for adoption.”

Phillips said parents circumvent state statute by calling the placement “respite care” and claiming that it is not an adoption.

“HB 438 seeks to address some of these problems by setting forth requirements for powers of attorney which address the physical custody of a child,” he said.

“By requiring the POA to be filed with the juvenile court, the bill will enable the court and child welfare to identify children who may be legitimately placed in the custody of a trusted friend or relative or if this placement is really a defacto adoption or rehoming. The identification of these children is the first step in ensuring that they are protected and their welfare is maintained.”

HB 438 is before the House Judiciary Committee.

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