Egypt says adoptive moms were human smugglers

Egypt says adoptive moms were human smugglers

Two women, Suzanne Hagelof and Iris Botros, were doing what they thought would be giving children a better life but when they tried to adopt they were accused of smuggling them. Epypt is saying that these two women were forging documents to try and adopt children and smuggle them out of the country. Along with the two American women, there were others accused which include their husbands, two doctors, a nun who ran the orphanage, and an Egyptian banker. When Hagelof and her husband adopted one year ago they said that no money was exchanged. When Botros and her husband adopted there was $4,600 exchanged which she states was for clothes and as a donation. When the two mothers wanted to take the children back to the U.S. they ended up having to get visa’s for them. The documents that they presented said, according to their attorney’s, that these women were the natural mothers. The defense attorney says that the women knew they were forged documents. I can completely believe that something like this would happen. It’s all starting to seem normal with the world that we are in today. People do horrible things…all that these women wanted were children of their own. They wanted to be good mothers and have children grow up in their household. What the women didn’t know that adoption is illegal under Egyptian law and only fostering is legal. If convicted of this trafficking crime each person could face up to 10 years in prison.

This is a scary thing. I think that things like this are better handled here in the U.S. In other countries you simply don’t know the laws or customs and could get yourself into big trouble. I wonder if these women did research or how they found out about adopting children in Egypt. I think that if I were to do such a thing I would do my homework first. Or maybe they did and just came across some dishonest people. In any case I would think that if this turns out bad that it would look bad on the Egyptian government and people may think twice before going there to vacation.