Imagine you are a child who is
already going through one of the most difficult things
imaginable: growing up without a permanent home,
shuffled through the foster care or adoption systems. It's already
confusing, emotional, and even scary. Then,
you find out you're going to live with a new family --
complete strangers who your current temporary
family basically sold you to on
Facebook.
Yes, you read that right:
Facebook has been hosting groups -- entirely
unregulated by the adoption industry -- where adoptive
or foster parents are trying to re-home vulnerable kids.
The language used in these
listings is vile: one flaunts a
child that is a "great hugger," grossly suggesting the
point of adoption is to find a baby that will satisfy
your physical affection needs. Another boasts
that a child "comes with a special $2,000 a day
contract," as if they are not a human being but a gig
economy opportunity or a new
computer.
Not only are these posts
dehumanizing and degrading; they are creating a
dangerous, unregulated process, putting already
vulnerable kids at further risk of abuse, displacement,
and trauma (studies show that re-homing a child
increases the likelihood of depression and mood
disorders). There are literal human
beings with full, complex lives being reduced to a
Facebook ad, and Facebook is doing nothing about
it. In a post-Roe world, it is likely even more
kids will be cycled into the troubled foster care and
adoption systems -- we need action, now. Sign the petition now to
demand that Facebook shut down all of these groups and
revise their policy to prevent anything like this in the
future!
