Child laundering

Child laundering is the stealing and selling of children to adopting parents under false pretenses. Often the adoption agency or adoption facilitator hides or falsifies the child's origin to make the child appear to be a legitimate orphan by manipulating birth certificates, intake records, or records regarding the deaths of the child's parents who might still be alive. These children are often taken against either their will or the will of their parents to be sold to foreign adopting parents who are given the false papers and false assurances as to the child's point of origin.

Adoption agencies may sometimes be unknowing or knowing participants in the transactions but most adoptions are facilitated by adoption agencies. This type of activity most often appears in international adoptions and is a specific form of child trafficking

"The term “child laundering” expresses the claim that the current intercountry adoption system frequently takes children illegally from birth parents, and then uses the official processes of the adoption and legal systems to “launder” them as “legally” adopted children. Thus, the adoption system treats children in a manner analogous to a criminal organization engaged in money laundering, which obtains funds illegally but then “launders” them through a legitimate business."