Blessed Be
While my stories are works of fiction, the issues that touch the characters are not. In fact, they are decidedly prevalent in modern society.
Below is a sampling of data and nonfiction resources that have informed my narrative.
Maternal mortality
Aid organization Save the Children puts India last in the G-20 in its Mothers’ Index, which measures pregnancy-related deaths, child mortality, and the economic, educational and political status of women. Out of 178 countries, India ranked 137 th in 2014.
In 2023, India still tops the list of ten countries which bear 60% of maternal deaths, stillbirths, and newborn deaths. The country accounts for 17% of global maternal deaths, stillbirths, and neonatal births.
In India, risk of maternal death is highest in rural and tribal areas of north-eastern and northern states. The leading causes of maternal death were obstetric hemorrhage, pregnancy-related infection, and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.
Transnational adoption
According to Arun Dohle of Against Child Trafficking, adoption papers created in the very beginning of the process form the basis for every later step in the process. Yet at no point does any authority crosscheck whether the papers and their content reflect truth.
Richard Cross, a senior special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who was involved in the 2002 probe of high-profile U.S. adoption agent Lauryn Galindo, says, ‘You can get away with buying babies around the world as a United States citizen. It’s not a crime.’
In a 2012 Harvard Political Review article, author Gina Kim states that until profits in the adoption industry are sharply reduced, it is difficult to imagine an end to practices that effectively amount to child trafficking.
Human trafficking
The United Nations estimates that internationally there are between 20 million and 40 million people in modern slavery today.
The ILO estimates human trafficking earns global profits of roughly $150 billion a year for traffickers.
ASPE estimates suggest that about 50,000 people are trafficked into the US each year. But it is believed this number is vastly underreported.
Globally, an estimated 71% of enslaved people are women and girls. South Asia is one of the fastest-growing regions for human trafficking in the world.
India has over 18 million people living in modern slavery. Activists estimate that between 3 and 9 million of those are victims of sex trafficking.
Red market trafficking
In 2011, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that the illicit organ trade generated illegal profits between USD 600 million and USD 1.2 billion each year.
Even with an estimated flow of funds crossing $1 billion annually, it is difficult for both law enforcement agents and anti-money laundering professionals to detect related financial activity. The transnational nature of the crime, and purveyors who know the laws related to organ trafficking well enough to circumvent them, help to camouflage the illegal trade.
According to the WHO, the international organ trade links the incapacity of national health care systems to meet the needs of patients with the lack of appropriate regulatory frameworks or implementation elsewhere. It exploits these discrepancies and is based on global inequities.
Trafficked organs are often transplanted to recipients in the most reputable of hospitals in major cities.
The WHO estimates that 1 in 10 transplanted organs was procured on the black market.
Cases are emerging where an organ donor may have been a victim of sex trafficking and/or labour trafficking as well as a victim of organ trafficking, creating a multi-level equation of exploitation.
Child trafficking
In 2018, Unicef indicated that children account for nearly one third of all human trafficking victims.
According to figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), one child goes missing in India every eight minutes. 40% of these children are never found.
According to the Delhi Crime Branch’s Anti Human Trafficking Unit, over 100,000 minor girls are abducted and trafficked every year, but the registered number of missing children is barely 1,000.
More than 4 out of 10 human trafficking cases in India in 2015 involved children being bought, sold, and exploited.
According to NGO Prajwala, family members will often sell children into slavery; the younger the victim, the more money the trafficker receives.
A 2014 article indicates that the laxity of authorities has allowed child trafficking syndicates to thrive, especially in the eastern states of India.
Police across India often refuse to register First Information Reports for poor missing children as it affects their station’s performance evaluations.
Further, India’s police typically don’t see trafficking as a crime, instead believing it a poverty-driven migration issue.
The impunity traffickers enjoy is increasing the influence and power of the criminal gangs involved in the trade.
Child sexual abuse
According to Human Rights Watch, Indian children are sexually abused by relatives at home, by people in their neighbourhoods, at school, and in residential facilities for orphans and other at-risk children. Most such cases are not reported. Many are mistreated a second time by a criminal justice system that often does not want to hear or believe their accounts, or to take serious action against perpetrators.
The number of child rapes in India has been rising at an alarming rate. National Crime Records reveals there were 48,338 recorded cases of child rape between 2001 and 2011. The report also indicates that 43% of these rape cases involved abducted minor girls. Activists say the number of registered cases is far lower than the actual incidence of such crimes.
A 2017 Reuters article indicates that 33% of India’s child victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation and child pornography.
In India, more than 100,000 minors are forced into prostitution every year.
Baby stealing and baby selling
Baby selling schemes are not uncommon in India.
According to a 2017 story from Reuters, experts say baby trafficking is becoming an organized crime in the country.
Traffickers tend to target poor, unmarried mothers.
A baby-selling operation typically requires the involvement of doctors, midwives and other medical practitioners and can often include owners of clinics and associated charities.
Activists say traffickers often collude with officials to steal babies and sell them for adoption.
More recently, sex workers have been targeted by baby traffickers. According to anti-trafficking charity Perana, where brothel madams used to control the pregnancies of workers, pimps have now emerged as mediators acting for underground buyer networks.
Campaigners suggest adoption wait times are at the heart of the increase in India’s baby-trafficking rackets.
Corruption in the Catholic Church
The Center For The Study of Global Christianity’s 2013 Status of Global Missions report by Director Todd M. Johnson pegs ecclesiastical crime at 37 billion dollars worldwide.
The Catholic Church is known to be one of the wealthiest institutions on Earth.
The IOR or Vatican Bank is one of the top banks in the world for money laundering.
The bank is known to have handled money for the Nazi regime and, more recently, for mafia entities and for drug and arms traffickers.
Located in a sovereign state, the IOR is shielded from external monitoring, similar to other offshore jurisdictions. Account holders’ capital gains are untaxed, financial statements kept private and anonymity guaranteed.
In reference to cartel donations to the Catholic Church in Mexico, Bishop Ramón Godinez in 2005 said that bad money should not be burned but transformed. He said the origins of the money should be ignored, that money can be purified through good works.
In matters of abuse, the majority of those within the Church who are considered credibly accused are never criminally prosecuted.
Clerics often flee to the Vatican because in its confines they cannot be extradited to face allegations of wrongdoing or criminal charges. They remain protected within the sanctuary of the Church, a sovereign nation-state.
Credibly accused predator priests are often moved or sent to another nation after allegations against them are reported.
Additional Resources
Maternal Health
Quality of maternal healthcare in India: Has the National Rural Health Mission made a difference?
No Woman, No Cry – A documentary directed by Christy Turlington Burns (2010)
Every Mother Counts
UN: Progress in tackling maternal as well as newborn deaths stagnant since 2015
Transnational Adoption
The Children Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce
Babies Without Borders: Adoption and Migration Across the Americas by Karen Dubinsky
The Lie We Love by E.J. Graff
International Adoption’s Trafficking Problem, Harvard Political Review June 20, 2012 by Gina Kim
Intercountry Adoption as Child Trafficking, Valparaiso Law Review 39, no. 2 (2004/2005) by David Smolin
A Challenge in India Snarls Foreign Adoptions by Raymond Bonner, New York Times June 23, 2003
A Business in Babies by Ravi Sharma, April 28, 2001, Frontline, The Hindu
Children as Commodities by Ravi Sharma, May 12, 2001, Frontline, The Hindu
Child trafficking, ‘manufactured orphans’: The dark underbelly of inter- country adoption in India
Human Trafficking
Trafficking in Persons Report – US State Department (2001-2022)
Sex Trafficking: Inside the business of modern slavery 2010 New York, NY by S. Kara
International Trafficking in Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Organized Crime by Amy O’Neill Richard
Red Market Trafficking
The Organ Detective: A Career Spent Uncovering a Hidden Global Market in Human Flesh, Pacific Standard Magazine, July 2014
The Red Market by Scott Carney
Organ Trafficking: The Unseen Form of Human Trafficking
Child Trafficking
Half of India’s missing children last year were sold into prostitution
Bachpan Bachao Andolan
Child Sexual Abuse
Bitter Chocolate: Child Sexual Abuse in India by Pinki Virani
Breaking the Silence – Child Sexual Abuse in India Human Rights Watch
Tulir: Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse
Baby Selling
Indian baby traffickers target pregnant sex workers
Mothers Told They Had Stillborn Children and Babies Sold for $1500: Indian Orphanage Shut Down
Indian Orphanage Officials Arrested for Selling Babies
Orphanage shut down for selling babies in eastern India
Doctor Held Over Child-Selling Racket
Baby selling racket busted
Rise in baby trafficking in India cuts adoption numbers and fuels trade
Corruption in the Catholic Church
In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy by Frédéric Martel
Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia by Paul L. Williams
Embezzlement in the Global Christian Community, Review of Faith and International Affairs, volume 13, no. 2 (Summer 2015) by Todd M. Johnson, Gina A. Zurlo, and Albert W. Hickman pp. 74-84
Head of Christian-run orphanage in India arrested in trafficking investigation
Police arrest priest in trafficking claim