Child abandonment

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an illegal way, with the intent of never resuming or reasserting guardianship.

(However, states have laws allowing a parent to permanently surrender a child at a designated safe haven "where they will not be prosecuted.

[37] Child abandonment is illegal in most of the world, and depending upon the facts of the case and laws of the state in which it occurs could be prosecuted as a misdemeanor or felony criminal offense.

As access to contraception increased and economic conditions improved in Europe towards the end of the 19th century, the number of children being abandoned declined.

Over one hundred and twenty thousand orphans (not all of whom were intentionally abandoned) were shipped west on railroad cars, where families agreed to foster the children in exchange for their use as farmhands, household workers, etc.

The sheer size of the displacement and the complications and exploitation that occurred gave rise to new agencies and a series of laws that promoted adoption rather than indenture.

The origin of the move toward secrecy and the sealing of all adoption and birth records began when Charles Loring Brace introduced the concept to prevent children from the orphan trains from returning to or being reclaimed by their parents.

[51] 'Rehoming' is still legal in Arkansas where, in 2015, state legislator Justin Harris made national headlines by rehoming two young adopted children.

[54] Persons in cultures with poor social welfare systems who are not financially capable of taking care of a child are more likely to abandon them.

"[61] Operation Babylift was established by the US government in an effort to bring over 3,300 children, many but not all of whom were abandoned, orphaned, or mixed-race, leading to fears of their exploitation, to Western countries to be adopted, with varying degrees of success.

Non-governmental organizations attempted to alleviate the problem by setting up international adoptions and other rehoming methods but were largely ineffective.

Ceaușescu, in an attempt to form a robust and young population, outlawed methods of contraception and encouraged the creation of large families with many children.

[62] Ceaușescu established Decree 770 which outlawed abortion and contraception for all women, except those who were over 40, had already borne 4–5 children, had life-threatening complications during pregnancy, or who became pregnant through rape or incest.

[65] The most common reasons for abandoning children in literature are oracles that the child will cause harm; the mother's desire to conceal her illegitimate child, often after rape by a god; or spite on the part of people other than the parents, such as sisters and mothers-in-law in such fairy tales as The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird.

Indeed, most such individuals are of royal or noble birth; their abandonment means they grow up in ignorance of their true social status.

In a common variant on the abandonment and rediscovery of an infant, the biblical story of Moses describes how the Jewish infant is abandoned by his mother and set to float in the Nile in a reed basket, in hopes that he will be found and nurtured; as planned, the child is discovered and adopted by the queen of Egypt, thus gaining a higher social status and better education, as well as a more powerful position than his birth family could have given him.

Mark Twain tweaks the traditional "upgrading" of the foundling's social status by having the child's twin, who is powerful by birth, experience the "downgrading " of his position in a switch planned by the two children, in "The Prince and the Pauper".

[68] In Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, a recognition scene in the final act reveals by these that Perdita is a king's daughter rather than a shepherdess, and so suitable for her prince lover.

[69] Similarly, when the heroine of Le Fresne reveals the brocade and the ring she was abandoned with, her mother and sister recognize her; this makes her a suitable bride for the man whose mistress she had been.

William Shakespeare used the abandonment and discovery of Perdita in The Winter's Tale, as noted above, and Edmund Spenser reveals in the last Canto of Book 6 of The Faerie Queene that the character Pastorella, raised by shepherds, is in fact of noble birth.

In the case of Quasimodo, the eponymous character in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the disfigured child is abandoned at the cathedral's foundling's bed, made available for the leaving of unwanted infants.

Ruth Benedict, in studying the Zuni, found that the practice of child abandonment was unknown, but featured heavily in their folktales.

This can imply or outright state that the child benefits by this pure upbringing by unspoiled people, as opposed to the corruption that surrounded his birth family.

[73] In some cases, the child is depicted as being raised by animals; however, in actuality, feral children have proven to be incapable of speech.

For example, the young Shigi Qutuqu was found wandering a destroyed Tatar camp, he was taken to either Genghis Khan's wife Börte or mother Hoelun to be raised.