As if the turmoil in Haiti could get any worse after the 7.0 earthquake that rattled the country, now comes word that many of the so-called Haiti orphans who were taken by missionaries, weren't orphans at all.
The orphans were instead willingly given up by their parents, in hopes of giving their children a better life.
Nearly a dozen U.S. missionaries were arrested last week for allegedly attempting to take 33 children from Haiti, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The missionaries have said they were merely attempting to help the children, but they could face kidnapping, trafficking and conspiracy charges. Human rights activists, however, have raised the question of whether such practices open the door for child trafficking.
The missionaries, according to published reports, lacked proper paperwork to legally adopt the children.
Diani Boni, Haiti program coordinator for the Kentucky Adoption Services, told the WSJ that it's fair to expect more parents to willingly give up their children.
"Rather than watch your child starve to death, if you love your child the way a Haitian parent does, you are willing to give that child to a stranger so that the child might live," she said.
More than 100,000 people are feared dead after the Jan. 12 quake. Many of the bodies of those killed will never be found.
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