The story of Masha Allen is emblematic of so much of the core of what’s wrong with adoption, both international and domestic. I have neither the time, nor the space to write a recap of what she has been through, but fortunately, at this moment, for the purposes of this post, I don’t need to as Bastardette among others has already been explaining Masha’s story and the ramifications of it for quite some time now.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, allow me to simply point you over to her page, not only to get up to speed on her previous work, but also to draw attention to her latest blog entry on Masha; “Masha Update: Child Exploitation Cracks in the Floor.” Readers unfamillar with Masha may want to actually start at the bottom of Bastardette’s post, to look at her previous posts on Masha, particularly “Masha Speaks — The Adoption Industry Bunkers in: “Disney World Girl” and the Shame of Complicity.”

Also be sure to see the blog post Bastardette’s latest post is referring over to, Childlaw’s piece “Child Exploitation Cracks in the Floor.” (Along with the other pieces there focusing on Masha.) It does a good job of focusing on what the aftermath of Masha’s life has been like since being removed from Matthew Mancuso;

“A few weeks later, on June 8, 2005, Buchanan told CNN Insight’s Jonathan Mann that Masha “has been adopted by a very loving family who has changed her name and moved her to another part of the country, where she can make a new start and have a very, very wonderful life ahead of her.” Mann’s response: “That’s astounding!”

Since then Masha’s astounding and very, very wonderful life has included five name changes, six schools, and ten addresses across two states and four counties. To date the system has continually failed Masha repeatedly for a number of years. As Masha once said, “you expect me to trust the system after all they’ve done to me?”"

and

“When Masha was rescued, she was placed with a young single foster parent with her own history of sexual abuse, given an unlicensed Christian therapist and a Medicaid card. When the FBI reportedly “moved her to another part of the country” a few months after her adoption, Masha was taken from the only community she knew and her thin support system was shattered. She began an unstable lifestyle which continues to this day. No therapists, no medical team, no house or meaningful compensation. Just a prayer and a press release and a one way ticket to nowhere. “