Before I get into today's news topic, I'd like to take a page from Heather's blogstyle book and begin with a few statements in bold:

I AM FULLY IN FAVOR OF REFORMING ADOPTION.

I UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE ASPECTS OF THE ADOPTION PROCESS THAT ARE DOWNRIGHT UNSAVORY.

SOME ADOPTIONS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

IN ADOPTION, AS IN MOST THINGS, MONEY IS AT THE ROOT OF EVIL.

Now, I'll get to this story out of India titled, "The Business of Adoption".

This article is typical of those making a leap ... and attempting to forge a link ... between trafficking and adoption. By taking one case, then extrapolating numbers out to imply that all are somehow related, the apparent goal is to create a connection in minds of readers between the acts of kidnapping and human trafficking and adoption in general.

After a couple of paragraphs on a kidnapped child located in a private adoption agency, and eventually returned to his parents, comes this:

34,000 children have been reported missing in Delhi in the last 20 years

6,687 children have been declared untraceable between 2004 and 2006

200 Indian couples are waitlisted on an average with each agency. Non-Indians are still preferred

Rs 10,000 is the maximum amount non-Indian couples can be charged for adopting a child

Rs 2,00,000 is the minimum amount non-Indians pay to adopt an Indian child

Rs 20,000 is the average amount paid by Indian couples to adopt a child. By law they should just pay for the expenses

By following the number of missing children with numbers of hopeful adoptive parents and adoption fees, a connection that doesn't exist anywhere is intentionally implied.

But is it true? Is it in any way an accurate representation of facts?

According to the National Centre for Missing Children there are no exact figures for how many kids go missing every year in India, but it's estimated that every 30 seconds a child runs away from home, and 2,185 children are reported missing each day.

The site quotes the US Department of Justice saying 203,900 children were abducted by family, while 58,200 were abducted by non-family, and 155 were, "... the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.)"

Much like "Amber Alerts" in the US, this organization helps parents with searching for missing kids, and it's rape and murder they're concerned about, not adoption.

This report brings the point home all too clearly, opening with, "The macabre killings of young children in Noida’s Nithari village have brought the plight of India’s missing children into focus."

It's trafficking for the sex trade, for slavery, and for even more gruesome motivations that is behind the numbers of missing children in India, and to attempt to implicate adoption as the reason thousands of kids go missing is a blatant attempt to divert attention toward some personal agenda and away from real issues that should be demanding action.

There is also this reality:

Forty per cent of the children said they had been trafficked when they were less than 10 years old; the rest were trafficked between the ages of 11 and 14. Half of these children had never been to school.

The children had been trafficked by family members or people who knew the family. Only 7% said they had been trafficked by total strangers. The children admitted that they had seen their parents or relatives accept money for them. In most cases, the traffickers had paid Rs 5,000 or less to acquire their human cargo.

Yes, there are problems in adoption, and they should be addressed. There are much bigger problems, however, that take a much larger toll, and if those were taken care of many of the adoption-related ones would dry up and blow away.

Warping horrid reality into a finger-jab into the eye of adoption isn't helping anyone, especially not the children.