If someone asked my response to an allegation that could be made by some people in the world that the 254 adoptions of Cambodian kids in 2006 are the reason there are babies in Cambodian orphanages, it would go something like:

"Hold the phone!"

(Okay, that's the polite version.)

"A total of 254 Cambodian children were adopted worldwide last year, compared to 129 in 2005, despite efforts by the US, Britain and France to ban their citizens from adopting, " said a report from the Interior Ministry's Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department.

(The number breaks down like this: 106 Italians, 43 Austrians, 28 French, and 78 from a variety of other countries, including three from Seychelles.)

Two hundred and fifty-four internationally adopted children in TOTAL for 2006. Do the words, "drop in the bucket" mean anything? How about "not even scratching the surfance"? Is there even a remote chance that people thinking adoptive families are the problem, not any part of a solution, might grasp the reality of DOZENS of children being abandoned every single day in Cambodia with no regard to whether or not American families may be allowed to adopt Cambodian kids?

(Here's a far too common scenario, one that I've seen and with which people living in the country are very familiar:

A woman comes to Phnom Penh from the provinces searching for the husband who has left her with no money and a raft of kids. It has taken every riel she could get her hands on to get to the city, but desperation made worse by the birth of another child has forced her to find out if there is any hope that her partner will return. When she learns that is not going to happen ... and she'll be lucky if a new girlfriend doesn't toss acid in her face just for having the temerity to show up ... she has no way to get back to her village and the children she left there. What can she do? She has only one thing of any value at all, and that's the newborn she carried with her. Fifteen dollars is all she needs, so she sets up on a cloth near one of the markets and begs someone to buy her baby. Someone will, but it won't be a nice person. The baby's next stop will be a brothel where people pay money to have sex with infants.)

There are an estimated 10,000 to 15, 000 prostitutes in Cambodia, 35% of which are minors. In Battambang 80% were trafficked for the purpose, and I'll bet good money that none were adopted by Americans.

Cambodia has the highest level of infant and under-five mortality in the region at 97 and 141 out of 1000, respectively. For a look at how that plays out, if 10,000 prostitutes had one child each, 1,410 of those children would be dead before they reached the age of five. Given the scarcity of birth control in the country, I'd say you could pretty much count on at least that many dead children from the sex slave world alone every year, not counting those that are children themselves and far too young to get pregnant.

I adopted my kids in 2003 and 2005, both after the suspension had been put in place. I know families in Seychelles that adopted three of those 254 from last year, almost five years after the ban went into effect. EVERY TIME any one of us has visited the orphanage there have been babies ... many babies. There were 15 when we were their in July, 2005 ... I know because I counted them ... almost all of them are still there, but now two-year-olds.

The suspension continues ... not for the French, as they're satisfied that the system works well enough and signed a protocol in June 2006 to once again permit French people to adopt from Cambodia ... and is going toward its sixth year of condemning Cambodian kids who might have had families to whatever life they are stuck with instead, and preventing families from adding wonderful children like my amazing Sam and my adorable CJ to their families.

Ethnocentrist anti-adoption folks must be very pleased, but how they can sleep at night escapes me completely.