Is Paul Petersen the Only Arizona Politician Trafficking Children? The Marshall Islands Scandal
The residents of Arizona have been in shock for the past week, and the rest of the nation has looked on in horror as local mainstream news in Arizona has reported about a federal investigation that led to the arrest of Paul Petersen, the Maricopa County Assessor and a Mormon adoption attorney, who is being detained by federal officials for trafficking children from the Marshall Islands. The Honolulu Civil Beat was probably the first media source to expose the black market illegal adoption practices of Paul Petersen before his arrest last week, reporting on it last year. The Civil Beat has reported on how the women from the Marshall Islands were recruited to give up their babies for adoption in America based on false promises. Civil Beat’s investigation showed how, despite reforms two decades ago to give the Marshall Islands control over all international adoptions, U.S. attorneys such as Petersen were ignoring a treaty between the two nations to fly pregnant women to the U.S. to hand over their newborns to American couples. Many Marshallese birth mothers said they did not know they’d be severing all connections to their children, a form of adoption largely unknown in their culture. U.S. Attorney Dak Kees said Petersen told Marshallese women to lie to U.S. Customs officials about their reason for traveling to the U.S. Once here, the pregnant women lived in overcrowded conditions, sometimes four to a room or on the floor without a bed. “Make no mistake, this is the purest form of human trafficking,” he said. Petersen charged adoptive couples $35,000 to $40,000, authorities said. But the Marshallese birth mothers only got about $10,000 — sometimes less, after the costs of travel, health care and housing were siphoned off. But Petersen may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Arizona politicians involved in trafficking children. Listen to this week's Medical Kidnap Show to get an insider perspective from a whistleblower, who will reveal things you probably are not going to read in the mainstream media.
