Actor: Officer of the Congolese Directorate of Migration, DGM

Sales of Congolese kids to couples and individuals in the U.S. is not the only mechanism to traffic children outside the DRC; in fact, procedures related to traditional adoption are also used for taking children outside the country. For instance, Laurence Sénéchal is a Belgian woman who was sentenced on appeal to six months in prison and to pay a fine of 300,000 Congolese francs (about 325 euros) for attempting child abduction. Sénéchal, as well as other foreigners involved, was not authorized to adopt. As a result, she tried to take illegally a kid out of the DRC by bribing two officers of the Congolese Directorate of Migration, DGM. In fact, Sénéchal not only managed to obtain fake documents of adoption in complicity with a criminal network of lawyers , she also obtained an emergency travel document issued on March 17th, 2014, by the Embassy of Belgium, to take out of the DRC the five years old girl, Agnés Sénéchal. Source: Kungu, Kléber. KongoTimes! Trafic des enfants en RDC : Quand la belgique fait honte...May 12th 2014. Available in: http://afrique.kongotimes.info/rdc/justice/7501-trafic-enfants-quand-bel...