Baby Business

199559 min 54 secFilm: Documentary

Direction: Judy Jackson

Production: Sylvie Van BrabantBarrie HowellsDon Haig

Script: Judy Jackson

Co-produced by Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc and the NFB with the financial participation of Telefilm Canada and Government of Québec, in association with TVOntario and with the collaboration of CFCF 12 and Vision TV.

Increasingly, middle-class families in the developed world who are unable to have children seek to adopt in the Third World where middlemen are making money out of misery and turning international adoption into a trafficking operation in babies. In El Salvador, women tell how soldiers snatched their babies from their arms during the civil war, babies who were later adopted abroad. In Central America, stolen children are kept in illegal nurseries and women are paid to act as mothers, giving them up for adoption. Also shown is the situation of the man in Mississippi, the natural father of a baby who was given up for adoption without his consent. Nevertheless, elimination of the middlemen allows humanitarian programs such as the one in Haiti, under which two British Columbian families adopt babies from unfortunate families seeking a secure future for their children.

Subject categories


  • Children and Youth > Adoption and Foster Care
  • Families > Adoption and Foster Care
  • Developing Countries > Central America and the CaribbeanMexico
  • Law and Crime > Crimes

Credits


director
Judy Jackson
script
Judy Jackson
narrator
Judy Jackson
producer
Sylvie Van Brabant
Barrie Howells
executive producer
Don Haig
photography
Carlos Ferrand
sound
Gilles Corbeil
Hans Oomes
editing
Camille Laperrière
sound editing
André Chaput
mixer
Serge Boivin
music
Lucie Jasmin

Awards


  • Gold CINDY AwardItinerant - International CINDY Competition
  • Gold Apple AwardNational Educational Media Network Competition
  • Certificate for Creative Excellence - Category: Social IssuesUS International Film and Video Festival
  • Honorable Mention International Film and Video Festival