Earlier today Reuters published the first two articles in a five-part series about disturbing, and illegal, adoption practices in the United States. The practice referred to as “re-homing” involves adoptive parents using Internet message boards and chat rooms to advertise and exchange the children they no longer want. And in some cases, the strangers willing to take in the children have sinister intentions and little to no child-rearing skills.
The series begins with the story of Quita, a Liberian woman who now lives in Milwaukee and was passed through the abusive hands of Nicole and Calvin Eason, both of whom have had their parental rights stripped, and were reported to have psychiatric problems and violent tendencies.
Quita’s adoptive parents decided she was too much to handle and handed her over to the Easons after connecting on a Yahoo message board. Her adoptive parents, Todd and Melissa Puchalla of Kiel, Wis., knew nothing about the Easons’ parental skills (or total lack of) and track record.
On the first night Quita was under the Easons’ care, she told Reuters the couple asked her to sleep in their bed in which Nicole Eason slept naked. And Quita wasn’t the first child to be “re-homed” by the couple.
Check the Reuters’ series tomorrow for its next installment, “The Middlemen.”
A warning: the story is as eye-opening as it is horrifying, so be prepared for graphic content.
