arrange the adoptions, where they are sometimes severely mistreated. Finally, after a forgery of documents to falsify a child's identity, the child is sent to the West to be united with his or her adoptive parents. Child acquisition There are several different ways by which "orphans" are acquired and later sold within the adoption system. Parent nations are almost always poor, and in most places, these countries also have a system where impoverished parents can temporarily care for their children by placing them in orphanages, hostels or schools. This community provides poor children with care, housing, and food until the family is in a better economic situation. In these cases, parents may have no intention to sever their parental rights or abandon their children. However, these institutions may take advantage of the child and family's economic and social vulnerability to illegally profit by making the child available to overseas adoption markets, netting orphanage owners thousands of dollars per child. Another instance where children are wrongly deemed orphans is when said children become lost or separated from their families. Although institutions are required by law to make an effort to locate the family, there is virtually no way to assess whether they actually do this. If these initial efforts to locate the family fail, or are declared as failures, the institution then has the opportunity to capitalize on this by putting the child up for adoption. Another way in which "orphans" are acquired is through an outright purchase of the child. The recruiters for these adoption rings seek out poor, pregnant women and offer to pay for their child. These parents may be led to believe that they will be kept in contact with the child and receive financial support from the adoptive parents. Likewise, they may be told that they will eventually be able to migrate to live with their child once he/she is grown, presumably in a more economically developed nation. Through these methods and more, recruiters lead the birth parents to believe they are providing a better future for their child. Treatment of children in orphanages Investigations by United States ICE agents have indicated that the conditions in many foreign orphanages involved in child laundering are inhumane. One investigation found that the children were unwashed and unclothed, unprotected from malaria, and lying in rusty cribs (Smolin: Child Laundering 139). Additionally, there was no experienced nurse caring for the