Snatched Indian children for sale in Australia

Sydney: The Australian government is investigating a media report that 13 Indian children may have been stolen from their parents as part of a child-trafficking network and brought to Australia for adoption.

Time magazine reported yesterday that an Indian-based adoption agency renamed children and fabricated their histories - complete with photographs of fake mothers - offering them for adoption.

It said it had seen adoption agency documents for 13 such children.

An Indian-based human rights lawyer told Time that an estimated 30 of the nearly 400 children brought to Australia in the last 10 to 15 years were trafficked.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland, said he was aware child trafficking may have been involved in two adoption cases. His department was investigating the report.

"At some stage there was child trafficking involved prior to them coming into contact with the agency involved in India," McClelland told reporters yesterday.

Location known

McClelland said he knew where one of the children was now living, but refused to disclose the location.

He said Australia was no longer working with the Indian-based adoption agency in the report.

Time detailed one adoption case involving a nine-year-old girl from Chennai, who it said was stolen while her mother went to a market. According to the report she was then adopted in 2000 by a family in Queensland.

Queensland Child Safety Minister Margaret Keech said Adoption Services Queensland became aware of the allegations in 2007, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported yesterday.