A baby-snatching scandal erupted recently in Hunan Province after reports that local family-planning officials in Shaoyang forcibly took infants away from parents who violated the one-child policy. Local welfare centers allegedly bought the children for 3,000 yuan ($461) a head and then sold them to foreign couples at $3,000 each. I was startled and naturally wondered how long this might have been going on.

It is unthinkable that my little Jasmine was abducted and sold like hamburger meat. It is even more unbearable to imagine that somewherein China there is a mother still grieving over the loss.

True, I paid the orphanage a $5,000 fee and got a receipt for the money, so it did not appear to be an under-the-counter payoff. After all, the US Consulate charged a $400 fee just to handle the paperwork.

Today, US adoption agencies have taken over the baby trade in China, and their fees are five times what I paid for a do-it-yourself adoption. The $500 fee I paid to a local government official was more questionable.

Fast-forward 10 years to our home in New Jersey. Jasmine was on the back porch. I overheard her telling a playmate, "In China, you can only have one kid. But my Chinese mom and dad already had a kid. So they had to give me back."

That was a child's rationale for being adopted, but eerily close to the reality of what allegedly happened in Hunan Province.

We will never know the truth of Jasmine's beginnings. But by age 12, her self-image as a Chinese orphan had already changed. Today, she feels the same way. "Those people didn't want me," she told me. "You and mom are my real parents."

The author is an Emmy Award-winning TV news correspondent. opinion@ globaltimes.com.cn