This report from the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) presents the stories of three Cambodian women whose children had been adopted overseas at different times over the last 15 years and exposes corrupt and fraudulent practices in Cambodia's Inter-country adoption system. The report provides a brief history and overview of intercountry adoption in Cambodia and presents details on each of the three adoption cases investigated in 2017.
The report concludes with recommendations "to the Cambodian government and to the governments of countries which have received Cambodian children that they should put in place procedures to help families to come forward and tell their stories, facilitate contact between birth-parents and children if all parties wish it, hold to account culpable parties, acknowledge the wrongdoing done to birth parents, adoptees and adoptive parents, and provide appropriate redress."
"The three women who approached LICADHO never stopped thinking about their children. Their loss has been a heavy burden on them and the lack of information about what happened to their children causes them daily distress. They now understand that their children will not return to live in Cambodia but they have a strong desire to re-establish contact and at the very least receive news of them."
