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“In fact, Indian Country Today Media Network has learned that Raymond Godwin allegedly told another lawyer in South Carolina, who declined to be identified, that he placed “upwards of 50 Native American children from North Dakota” last year alone. In that conversation, Godwin said that Indian children are easier to place, “because they’re lighter-skinned.”
Even worse, says Mason, is the blatant marketing and selling of Indian children by lawyers who make anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 in legal fees for these children. “Anyone can do the math and realize that this is an enormous industry in the trafficking of Indian children,” says Mason. “And they’re preying on poor, uneducated Native women who are in poverty and have no idea what’s going on and don’t know any better, which is precisely why ICWA was enacted in the first place. They are predators who do everything in secret to prevent the biological fathers and the tribes from blocking the flow of income they receive off these adoptions.””
– Indian Country Today, Trafficking Native Children: The Seamy Underbelly of U.S. Adoption Industry.
“Even worse, says Mason, is the blatant marketing and selling of Indian children by lawyers who make anywhere from $25,000 to copy00,000 in legal fees for these children. “Anyone can do the math and realize that this is an enormous industry in the trafficking of Indian children,” says Mason. “And they’re preying on poor, uneducated Native women who are in poverty and have no idea what’s going on and don’t know any better, which is precisely why ICWA was enacted in the first place. They are predators who do everything in secret to prevent the biological fathers and the tribes from blocking the flow of income they receive off these adoptions.””
– ICWA Info, Trafficking Native Children: The Seamy Underbelly of U.S. Adoption Industry.
Defintion
Wakanheza (n.) – child, children
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
