(15 Aug 1996) Portuguese/Nat

Details of Brazilian orphans are to be published on the Internet in an attempt to find suitable parents to adopt them.

The authorities say putting the children up for adoption through the worldwide computer network will give the children a better chance of finding a family.

And they claim the new system will make adoption safer and less emotionally traumatic for the children involved.

SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese)
I want a house and a family... I'm going to root for the family.
SUPER CAPTION: Bruno

His name is Bruno and he shares the same dream as four thousand other children waiting for adoption in the orphanages of Rio de Janeiro.

Thanks to technology their dream may soon come true.

The children's details are being entered into a data bank which will be linked up to the Internet in September.

Through the World Wide Web, the fastest growing part of the international computer network, the children will be seen by would-be parents the world over.

Brazilian authorities say the new system would cut out the sometimes shady intermediaries who currently offer Brazilian children for adoption abroad.

SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese)
There was a lot of information about traffic of children and irregular adoptions, not only in Brazil but in other countries. There were charges made of organ trafficking, children that were being adopted in order to be killed to have their organs sold... so we became very concerned.
SUPER CAPTION: Jose de Lisboa de Gama Melcher, President of Supreme Court, Rio de Janeiro

Orphanages find very small children are the easiest to place with families.

But couples are increasingly reluctant to take in older kids.

The Internet data bank will now concentrate on finding new homes for these children.

Sister Rita has been working at the Romao Duarte Orphanage for 20 years.

She believes that allowing parents to choose a child for adoption through a computer will make the whole adoption process less traumatic.

SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese)
The children won't have that frustration... they chose him and they didn't choose me... They don't need to know if another child has been chosen. We would take the child that has been chosen to one side and let them know that a couple had chosen them on the Internet and would like to see them to adopt. That child will already know and the others don't need to find out. It's very sad for kids and for us as well to see a family chose a child as if it were an object "I'll take that one, no, not that one, the other". I think that's terrible.
SUPER CAPTION: Sister Rita, Romao Duarte Orphanage

The children don't understand the technology very well.

But they're placing their hopes in it to find them the family and home they have always dreamed of.

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