05/13/2026
RIP Hana Alemu
The media is leaving crucial details out of Hana’s death; it's essential to know her true identity in honoring her today on the anniversary of her death.
What happened to her is inhumane, horrifyingly wrong, and what we can now consider to be the gravest crime against humanity. What is left out in the backstory of Hana's adoption from Ethiopia is a detail that has made headlines and has been the number 1 complaint from adoptive parents.
On March 25th, three days after the anniversary of Begidu Morris' death who was also purchased from Ethiopia, the United Nations passed the resolution that slavery and the transatlantic slave trade is the gravest crime against humanity.
This needs to be front and center as an American couple, Carri and Larry Williams, purchased Hana and Immanuel from Ethiopia, transported them under false pretenses of giving them "a better life in a loving forever home" to then spend the next 3 years abusing them to the point Hana died. This is well beyond the typical story of "adoption." The truth is it has happened to countless other children for decades.
Of course the detail about being purchased, bought and sold, otherwise known as child trafficking, has been totally left out of the news stories, court records, and never made it into the final sentencing of this couple. Carri who was home at the time Hana died, was convicted of homicide by abuse and 1st degree assault. She did not receive the full life sentence, instead, up to 38 years in prison. Her husband, Larry, was convicted for 1st degree assault and manslaughter and received up to 27 years in prison.
Both defense attorneys for the couple minimized the extent and severity of what is defined as torture and starvation, by calling it "poor parenting choices." The state also downplayed Hana's murder saying the system "can be improved." The US has maintained this attitude as we have seen countless more children in both foster care and permanent placements be brutally murdered.
In the US and over a hundred other countries around the world, child trafficking and child slavery have been legalized as "adoption." Anyone can purchase a child, abuse them, kill them, and all too often walk free after receiving reduced sentences. What makes this case more egregious is that these children were bought by White Americans from an African nation and abused, tortured, starved them to the point Hana died.
This is not a case of the system failing them, or the need for reforms, it is proof of modern day slavery, another example of American imperialism. It is inexcusable to allow the false narratives of "adoption" influence the outcomes of these cases. How is it publicly promoted to purchase a child and have buyers openly complain about how much they paid for a child, when it is not even considered after they murdered them?
For years victims of the industry have been raising our voices that we are seen and treated as "disposable commodities." We have to watch year after year, more people buying and killing us simply because people say "but adoption is legal." And then they are confused how we are abused, tortured, and murdered, but keep celebrating "adoption." The global multibillion dollar human trafficking industry can no longer be ignored when it shows up in small town America.
Shut it down now. What has humanity come to when it's become normalized to purchase and dispose of a human life?
