"Meet up agad’: Filipino babies sold on Facebook as gov't struggles to improve adoption process", 29 June 2023

Facebook pages selling Filipino babies continue to proliferate despite efforts to stop the illegal trade online, an investigation by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) showed.

It underscores the difficulty of policing the popular social media platform despite attempts by the Philippine government, civil society groups, and Meta itself, the parent company of Facebook, to crack down on the illegal activity.

A quick search by PCIJ found at least 12 of these Facebook groups readily accessible in the Philippines. 

Babies are offered like regular products in online stores. 

The online pages are competitive spaces. Several supposed birth parents have uploaded ultrasound pictures to entice couples who want to adopt.

Seventeen-year-old Paula, not her real name, was facilitating the adoption  of her baby even before giving birth. Instead of getting excited, she felt despair as her due date neared.

Paula said it was a coincidence that she found a Facebook group discussing adoptions in April while scrolling through her newsfeed.

Government worried 

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) sounded the alarm on illegal adoptions back in 2017.

In 2021, it said it had monitored, tracked down, and reported 48 fake Facebook accounts involved in the illegal activity.

It vowed to do better.

Undersecretary Janella Estrada, executive director of the National Authority for Child Care (NACC), said she was alarmed over adoptions being facilitated through Facebook and assured the public of prompt action.

“I myself searched for Facebook pages and found that these do exist,” Estrada said. “When you sell online, we don’t know what others will do with the children. [It could be] child trafficking, child abuse, child labor, or sexual abuse.”

Estrada said she had coordinated with Facebook and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to remove these pages and track the perpetrators.

Adopters complain of slow gov’t processes  

Prospective adoptive parents complain about the slow process of adoption, which could take years. 

Two of those who were eager to adopt were Luis and Nancy (not their real names). The couple have been married for years but were unable to conceive.

After a year of waiting, Luis and Nancy decided to look for other options on the internet. Nancy did a Google search about baby adoption and discovered various Facebook groups. The two knew it was illegal, but they were willing to take the risk.

The desperation is shared by many on Facebook. Several netizens also complained about the numerous adoption requirements and the tedious process that drove them to Facebook adoption groups.

Luis and Nancy would fall victim to a scam which has victimized many couples online, however. 

Necessary precautions 

The NACC is aware that many prospective adoptive parents complain about the long and tedious adoption process. 

There are nine steps in the adoption process, which includes attending a pre-adoption seminar, collection of information about the prospective adoptive parents and analysis of their motive, submission of required documents, and social worker’s preparation of a Home Study Report.

NACC is quick to remind the importance of adhering to the process.

Scam victims 

Paula, Luis, and Nancy warn of scams on Facebook. There are victims on both ends of transactions made on the social media platform, they said. 

PCIJ also found one Facebook group that pretended to promote legal adoption by citing laws and warning against fraudulent acts. But a closer look showed posts of the group’s administrators asking netizens for P500 if they wanted to get ahead of the line to buy a baby.

Improving the process 

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has denounced the illegal trafficking of babies on its site. It removed the Facebook groups found and reported by PCIJ.

“There is no place on our apps for illegal child adoption, and we have removed these Groups for violating our policies against human exploitation,” a Meta spokesperson said. 

“We use proactive detection technology, human review and reports from our community to find and remove this content as quickly as possible. We also work with law enforcement in situations where there is immediate risk of harm.” 

Despite these measures, new pages keep cropping up for desperate adoptive parents looking to meet up and transact.