Last week the news was all about human trafficking of Jamelia Hinds, and on Friday it culminated when you heard the remarkable accounts of two mothers who gave their children away to an American woman and haven't heard from them since.
Both mothers admitted they were in desperate straits and gave the kids away so the children could have a better life.
Antonette and Alfred Williams didn't have that choice with their son Alfred Adrian. The couple - self-sufficient parents to 9 children - from Independence village legally gave over their infant son to an adoptive mother in 1994 - because he was in need of medical attention which would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They say the understanding was that the adoption was just so that he could access insured care in the United States, and after that he would be returned to them.
But he never was and 17 years later, they've tried everything to get him back including having the adoption reversed in Belize's courts and challenged in a US court. They've also tried to contact him, but the adoptive mother has rebuffed them. So it's all been to no avail and now they say they just want him to know he has a home and a family in Belize.
Jules Vasquez
"What's like for you as a mother knowing that your baby is out there, he doesn't know about his mother and the only things he may know may be distortions or untruths?"
Antonette Williams
"It's very hard, every day I get up and pray for my son. There is not a day go by that I don't think about him and I hope that one day he will be able to come back home to us."
Alfred Williams, Has not seen his son for 15 years
"The story that went around the time that we had to give up our child was that we were so poor, we had nothing. The real story is that anyone can see, I mean I am a Belizean, I am drug free, I have 8 other kids. I have 3 of my kids that have already graduated from the University of Belize. Two that have bachelor's degree and all the rest of my kids are in school so there is no way that I couldn't afford to take care of my other child."
Jules Vasquez
"Explain why you all made that decision at that time?"
Antonette Williams
"Because our son was very sick. The medical treatment he needed at that time was not available here in Belize. We did not have the finance for him to get the needed surgery. So we had no choice at that time. We believe and still do that we made the best possible choice we could have at the time."
Jules Vasquez
"A critic out there would say 'well you signed him over' you can't expect anything else. Bur it's a bit more involved than that, you and the person to whom - his foster mother, his adoptive mother, you and her family and her had an understanding that he was only being adopted so that he could access insurance and so in that country, in the United States."
Antonette Williams
"Yes because the agreement was that her insurance would help her pay the medical bill. Where would we have gotten over US$250,000.00? At that time we didn't have it and we still don't at this time and the other choice would have been - let our baby die, no mother would willingly make that choice. Whatever a mother would have to do to save a child's life - a mother would do. So I would like to tell him if he would be able to hear this that the reason why he was given for adoption was to save his life and if it's something I could do over, I would do it because it means saving his life."
Alfred Williams, Has not seen his son for 15 years
"My thing is that I would love for my child to know - probably he don't want to come back but I want him to get his real life story knowing that he has a family that loves him, he have brothers and sisters. His mother and I think about him all the time and we would love for him to get the story for real."
You can find a link to the website set up by his adoptive mother at 7newsbelize.com.
http://www.international-childrens-medical-foundation.com/tony.html
According to the family, a number of Belizean children adopted by the same woman are on it.
Email
Print