The difference between the illicit trade in infants and legitimate intercountry adoptions is at times difficult to monitor. As Ethan Kapstein writes in Foreign Affairs, “the difference may be clear conceptually, but it is not always clear in reality.”
“Buying infants is illegal covering the cost of raising then until they are adopted is not,” Kapstein writes. ” The distinction between the two can be so obscure, however, that unless parents actually confess to selling their children, adoption and immigration authorities may struggle to prove it.”
Source: Ethan Kapstein, ” The Baby Trade,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003, pg. 115-125.