Once again, it seems that the line between taking children and taking CARE of children is being blurred, this time in Liberia.

The US State Department is stepping up the rhetoric.

"Liberia is a source, transit, and destination country for children trafficked for forced labor and sexual exploitation; the government must therefore integrate into each of these large objectives strategies for combating trafficking in persons."

... "Most trafficking occurs within the country, though some children are trafficked to Liberia from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire and from Liberia to Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, The Gambia, and Nigeria."

While the report concedes that the issue of child and human trafficking in Liberia is a special case because it is in political transition during the reporting period, it indicates that Liberia's trafficking picture is increasing.

Very unfortunately, as often happens, international adoption is once again being tarred with the evil brush that paints the picture of prostitution and slavery. Instead of limiting the discussion to such conditions as, "Those trafficked by individuals from neighboring Cote d'Ivoire were are used to fight a proxy war in which they were used as guinea pigs at battlefronts to test the safety of the terrains," and, "that they were trafficked for domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, agricultural labor, and street vending," the specter of families is brought up as something akin.

This:

"There are reports as well of some orphanages obtaining children through abduction or fraudulent means and exploiting those children in the commercial sex trade or for hawking in the street," the report revealed.

Becomes this:

Some kids as young as five months, according to recent reports, were abducted by white folks who come into the country under the guise of rendering humanitarian services.

"Some women on the Mercy Ship use their Liberians contacts to take away children under the guise of adoption without the proper involvement of the government. Also involved in this practice are heads of some mushroom churches with contacts in the U.S.

(I've no idea what a "mushroom church" is, by the way.)

Apparently, the way this is being dealt with it by closing orphanages and setting up a new section of the police ... with support from UNICEF. Oh! and some workshops ... mustn't forget the workshops. They now have twenty-four law enforcement officers investigating trafficking issues.

Well, then. That should do it.