What a heart wrenching hour of TV - 48 Hours Mystery "The Lost Children." I couldn't help but spend many moments teary as I watched the adoptive parents and the birth parents struggle with the news that the placement of the children they loved was built on lies. Scott and Karen Banks owned the Utah based adoption agency, Focus on Children and placed close to 100 Samoan children in adoptive homes. The back stories were similar - poverty stricken families couldn't afford to feed the children, or they were abandoned by birth family. A "nanny house" was even established in Samoan as a sort of foster home to care for the children who waited. But as investigations were completed on these false adoptions, most children never lived in the nanny house.
Birth families in Samoa thought they were placing their children in an international foster program so that their children could gain an education, but would return when 18. They were also promised contact. The adoptive parents were told that it was a closed adoption.
The investigation on 48 Hours Mystery followed 3 adoptive families. The Nybergs, were the first to figure out that their adoption was not valid when their daughter could remember her biological family, but not the nanny house. They sent a Samoan friend to visit their daughter's birth family. They were devastated when their friend reported back that the family thought they would soon hear from their child. They contacted the US Immigration about what they had found. The Nybergs took their daughter on a visit to Samoa and made the decision to leave her there with her birth parents. They still have legal custody, but feel it's best for their daughter to be where she is happiest.
Another part of the adoption scam was that the Banks told birth families to leave their children at the nanny house. After children live there for a few months they are then classified as orphans under Samoan law. Even though the Nybergs had alerted officials, adoptions did not stop until a 17-month-old little girl died in the nanny house from malnutrition.
Almost all Samoans feel it's best for their children to remain in their adoptive homes. However, one birth father is still fighting for his daughter. But the adoptive family stated on the show that they will fight back. Another adoptive parent took her daughter to Samoa for a week long visit, and feel that her child found her identity during the visit to her home country and feel it's in her best interest to keep a connection to her family and her culture. They are in a now open adoption.
In February 2009, Scott and Karen Banks as well as 5 employees, who were once charged with 135 felony charges, plead down to just several misdemeanors and were given 5 years probation and no jail time. In my opinion, they committed kidnapping. And the children have paid the highest price in trauma, lost identity, and confusion. I was shocked at such a slap-on-the-wrist.
I do agree with the decision that the courts will not decide where the children will live. I think that should be left to the families and the children to work out. The system has done enough damage.
Did you watch this episode Saturday night? What are your thoughts? Please click "comments" and share.
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Why Choose an Open Adoption?
The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute: Beyond Culture Camp
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Wow, is all I can say. As an adoptive parent this has got to be one of my worse fears! I did not watch the show but will try to see if I can watch it on demand or on the internet. Thank you for telling us about it.
Thx so much for this. I think that parents who will fight to keep a child whose father wants back ( unless they have evidence of ill-treatment – not poverty) are treating their kid as an object. They will never respect her as a person. They will always know what´s best for her without even listening to her!!! This is the dark side of adoption.
MG