B.B.C. baby special raises questions

Press, 21 July 1976, Page 15

B.B.C. baby special raises questions

By

KEN COATES

Whan it comes to highlighting something as full of human interest as an international traffic in babies, with scores of appealing baby faces and scenes of heart-rending misery, television cannot be surpassed. The real challenge to the medium is to look beyond the superficial. The 8.8. C. “Panorama” team which brought TVl’s “Tonight” special on Monday, did meet this challenge reasonably well.

While there was fulsome coverage of the plight of abandoned babies, the corruption and dubious methods associated with their adoption and the operation of agencies in the baby business, the report did raise all-important questions.

The reason for the demand for babies from adoptive parents in Europe and North America was made abundantly clear — there are simply insufficient babies in the more affluent countries to satisfy the desire of childless couples to rear a child. The 8.8. C. team also made it clear that the countries chosen, Bangladesh, Thailand and South Korea are only three of 23 under-developed or “third world” countries which

allow babies to go to affluent countries.

The plight of refugee and destitute babies in both Bangladesh and Thailand was made abundantly clear by filming wretched conditions in both countries.

One could appreciate the force of the argument which runs — the poor little babies are condemned ' to a life of degradation, hunger and misery anyway, so why not give them a chance or a better life with loving parents? It was interesting that the New Zealand voluntary worker, Alan Cheyney, raised the question of the suitability of fitness of one American woman to adopt a child at all. The state of the “baby business” in Thailand was well described as being “directed by the dead hand of corruption.” And the fastest adoption barrister in Bangkok needed no elaboration other than what came from his own mouth.

Possibly the most thought-provoking section of the programme was the full coverage given to the operations of the welloiled, American-based organisation called Holts in Korea.

This do-good organisation was aptly described in this way: “Holts are to baby traffic what Hertz are to hire cars.”

The programme showed how the babies are processed, labelled and each given a bag of “mementos of Korea.”

Dubious though the practice may be, members of the organisation justified sending hundreds of babies to Western homes as being in accordance with the Christian ethic.

It was good reporting to bring out the point that here, once more, misguided people are justifying questionable charity as “the will of God.” Matching Asian babies with parents thousands of miles away was carried out with “nudging of the Spirit.” It was appalling. But it was heartening to see the whole business presented, not necessarily as a great and worthwhile act of charity performed by a welcoming Western world, but as a highly questionable exercise in which the interests of the child are not placed first. The lack of social welfare in Asian countries as an alternative to sending babies abroad was underlined. And the Asian social worker put it so well when she asked what would happen when the babies became teen-agers and adults, deprived of their own culture and not knowing the countries from which they came?