Dear Senators, A few years ago the story of a woman who put her 7 year old adopted son on a plane back to where he came from, Russia, made headlines. You must remember the case. The boy was by himself with just a note from the mother to the authorities at the other side of the Atlantic, telling that she couldn’t handle him anymore. In a certain way it was a mild case, compared to recent cases where adoptive parents abused and eventually killed their kids. Korean Hyunsu O’Callaghan (3 years old) for example, who was only a few months with his new family, when his father beat him to death in February of this year. Last year in July a criminal process took place in which adoptive parents were accused of abusing their Ethiopian daughter, until her death in the cold rain followed. Investigative journalist Kathryn Joyce described in Slate of last November the girl’s ordeal as follows: “On the night of May 11, 2011, sometime around midnight, 13-year-old Hana Williams fell face-forward in her parents’ backyard. Adopted from Ethiopia three years before, Hana was naked and severely underweight. Her head had recently been shaved, and her body bore the scars of repeated beatings with a plastic plumbing hose. Inside the house, her adoptive mother, 42-year-old Carri Williams, and a number of Hana’s eight siblings had been peering out the window for the past few hours, watching as Hana staggered and thrashed around, removed her clothing in what is known as hypothermic paradoxical undressing and fell repeatedly, hitting her head. According to Hana’s brother Immanuel, a deaf 10-year-old also adopted from Ethiopia, the family appeared to be laughing at her.”
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