American Adoptive Family Reportedly Imprisoned in Ghana, Accused of Child Trafficking

UPDATE as of 6/26 -- The media has picked up the story. See my full post here.

UPDATE as of 6/25 -- The blog All Are Precious in His Sight posted this news about the Moghadam family this morning:

 

Apparently an anonymous tipper contacted the Ghana police and made accusations that the Moghadams were child trafficking.  The police acted upon this tip, interrogated the Moghadams, but when the Moghadams only had copies (as opposed to originals) of their adoption paperwork, the Ghanaian police arrested Sol and Christine Moghadam and removed all six of the children from their custody for further investigation.  Sol and Christine were put in jail while their six children, including their two biological US children, were held in a government orphanage overnight.

The Moghadams’ adoption agency (Dillon International) acted quickly, as did others in Ghana, as did countless people in the US adoption community.  Sol and Christine were released from prison Saturday afternoon, their two biological children were returned to them, but their four adoptive children from Ghana remain in the orphanage until the Ghana government investigates and clears the children for international adoption. 

The Moghadams have been falsely accused of child trafficking, and they have all of the official legal paperwork to prove that the adoption of these four children has been done legally and with integrity.  While it’s wonderful that the government officials of Ghana take child trafficking seriously, it’s heartbreaking to see this happen to a legitimate adoptive family.

 

UPDATE as of  6/24 -- Many blogs are reporting that Sol and Christine Mogdaham have been released on bail and are now staying in a hotel, and that their two biological children have been released from the government orphanage into the custody of the US Embassy. State Department officials have apparently left the two boys in the care of their parents; meanwhile, the four children the Mogdahams have adopted remain in orphanage care. A hearing is said to be set for Monday.

 

According to the blog No Greater Joy, Sol and Christine Moghadam, an American couple, have been arrested in Ghana on  charges of child trafficking and their six children -- two biological, ages four and seven, and four newly adopted older kids -- have been sent to a local orphanage.The younger children do not speak the local language -- do they even understand what has happened?

The accused couple had been blogging about their adoption plans here at "The Moghadam's Journey to Africa;" their last updated entry, on May 18,  is titled "Court date set -- Ghana here we come!" According to the blog, wife Christine grew up in Seattle; photos indicate she is of Asian descent. Husband Sol survived the life of a street child in Tehran before emigrating to the US. Husband and wife appear to be devout evangelical Christians. They are apparently working with the Dillon Adoption Agency, which enjoys a good reputation. They also made a video for Adopt Together, a fundraising platform used by prospective adoptive families to help finance adoption.

 

 

 

I really know nothing else about this family, but intuition tells me that the family's multiethnic appearance may have attracted negative attention; in other words, because they don't "match" as a family, Ghanian authorities decided to question their bona fides. I may be totally off base here, but I will be following their story to find out what happens. I hope the US State Department  gets to the bottom of this quickly.

 

Comments

[Lisa]

Not to make light of the tragedy that is this situation, but Ghana's official language is English and I presume Sol and Christian's children speak English. I have curious about blogs including information on the bio children's inability to communicate with anyone in Ghana may because they do not speak the local language (actually multiple are languages are spoken in Ghana). While some sre simply ignorant of the fact that Ghana's official language is English, others know better but continue to try to evoke more sympathy for a situation that is already tragic enough on its own without any embellishments. I think this would be pretty offensive to people from Ghana.

[Sharon]

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for pointing out that English is the official language of Ghana -- I didn't realize that. I am the first to admit I've never been to Ghana, but I would imagine, based on my time in orphanages in India and Ethiopia, that many of the caregivers in the government orphanage in Accra where the Moghadam children were placed do not speak much English; those jobs tend to go to women who haven't had much formal education, and usually staff members speak many different languages and it's kind of a soup. But there are probably some supervisors at least who speak English who may or may not be interacting with the kids. I think it's a pretty horrific situation for these children regardless.

[Lisa]

Not sure how teens do it - but when I try to single-finger type on my phone, I leave a trial of nonsensical sentences!

Without having any information from the Ghanian officials on why they took the actions they did, any assumptions on their motivations would simply be based on pure speculation - and we all know how off base that can be! I think we may be projecting America's race issues onto Ghana and seeing racism where they was none. The world by and large sees Americans as Americans and do not really spend as much time as Americans dissecting everyone's race and putting them in their respective boxes.

I think charges of child trafficking are pretty serious (and I by no means implying that Sol and Christine were engaged in any child trafficking) and warrant serious action by all involved. I firmly believe that the racial makeup of the couple had nothing to do with the accusations of child trafficking - tragically, it has happened before, and the culprits were by and large caucasians (remember the attempted trafficking after the earthquake in Haiti).

[Sharon]

You're right, I'm definitely speculating about what might have happened -- I have no idea. I have spent a lot of time in other developing countries, though, and met many people who really didn't understand what adoption means from the point of view of the adoptive parenting -- and with so much trafficking of children in developing countries for labor, sex etc, you can't really blame people for being suspicious! With the Moghadams you have a family in which no member looks that much like any other member; even the bio kids. The fact that no one is "matching" may have fueled suspicions that this isn't a "real" family. Not really a race issue so much as preconceived ideas about how a family should look. I may be totally off base, and making too many assumptions about my experiences in other places. Anxious to hear the full story, and hoping this has all been just a misunderstanding.

[Lisa]

I think child trafficking is a world wide problem and not necessarily limited to developing countries - sometimes we do not want to believe that is is happening right under our noses. The instance I was referred to was actually Americans taking advantage of the situation of the post-earthquake chaos in Haiti to traffic children from Haiti to the Dominican Republic ostensibly to bring them to the U.S for adoption. There have been fairly recent cases in 2 pretty liberal cities near where I live that involved child trafficking and human slavery and these ills still continue today (think Berkeley and San Francisco). And there was not much public outcry - I think people want to continue to believe it is only a problem in developing countries.

I think the Ghanaian officer's assertion that Sol and Christine are white added more weight to my assertion that most people do not look at Americans through the race lenses - they simply saw 2 white Americans with 4 Ghanaian children leaving the country and they did not have original adoption decrees. I cannot really use my experiences from living in 2 African countries to make generalizations about a huge continent like Africa, but of my 2 decades in East Africa - I was simply an American as were all the other Americans of multiple racial make-ups who were living there. Race was really a non-issue - we were Americans, Brits, Norwegians, etc.

[Sharon]

Hi Lisa,

I think we are in agreement about most things -- but I read that quote from the Ghanaian official as referring to the two white CHILDREN and four black children that the Moghadams had with them, not two white parents. Christine is Chinese American and Sol is Persian, born in Iran. I get what you are saying, that an American is viewed as an American first when visiting other countries; what I'm saying is that many people of all cultures have an expectation that family members will "match" each other. A family that doesn't "match" attracts more attention, or is assumed not to be a family.

[Pineiro Comstock]

It is just very right to imprison people who commit child trafficking. This has been a problem for centuries and until now still the problem is evident worldwide.