The Latest Scoop on Adoptions from Guatemala

The Washington Post ran an article about how prospective adoptive parents are caught in the middle of Guatemala’s adoption reform.

The article reports Guatemala's solicitor general, Mario Gordillo, is worried that “desperately poor Guatemalan women are being induced to conceive children for adoption by private brokers offering as much as $3,000 a baby.”

Guatemala (which accounts for one out of every five children adopted internationally by U.S. families) has long had a thriving baby selling industry, due to its severe poverty (more than half the population lives below the poverty line, and almost one third live on less than $2 per day).

Since the mid 1990s, an active network of unscrupulous attorneys and notaries in Guatemala have paid poor women to get pregnant and then sell their babies to them. The attorneys hire foster mothers to care for the babies during the months it takes for the adoption paperwork to get approved.

The Guatemalan government has turned a blind eye to the baby selling industry; according to the article: “Guatemala has no government agency charged with tracking children whose mothers wish to give them up — let alone caring for such children or matching them with adoptive parents overseas.”

In May, Guatemala’s Congress voted to accede to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, beginning January 1, 2007. The article points out: “This has raised questions about whether an estimated 5,000 adoptions currently in process will be allowed to proceed if they are not completed by the end of this year.”

The adoption situation in Guatemala seems to change on an almost daily basis. The Guatemala Adoption Information & News blog does a good job of keeping people abreast of the latest happenings.

For more news and information about adoption, visit www.laurachristianson.com, and check out my Exploring Adoption bookstore.

I’d love for those of you who are waiting to adopt from Guatemala to chime in with your thoughts, updates, and advice.

Related articles:

• Adoption Fraud: Child trafficking in Haiti, Guatemala
• International Adoptions to U.S. Decrease by 9% in 2006

Sources:
The Seattle Times, reprinted from The Washington Post, “Prospective parents caught in middle of Guatemalan adoption reform,” by N.C. Aizenman and Manuel Roig-Franzia

“Guatemala Status of Intercountry Adoptions and the Hague Convention,” U.S. Department of State

Comments

[Gracie]

I certainly agree that unethical practices need to be stopped and that laws need to be put in place to protect children from money-hungry child salesmen. However, where it gets difficult is where special needs kids are concerned. In their culture, they are unwanted, and the new laws mean time and adoptability are sacrificed while the system gets their act together. My husband and I are probably not far enough along in our process to rescue a baby girl from a life in an institution before it is too late. The difference that love can make in her life where there is no other hope is monumental. Other children with medical needs don't have the time for all of this to take place. Without receiving critical medical treatment, they won't live to see adoptions open up again. These are my concerns with all of this. While overall it seems like it could be a good thing, there are many children who will be trapped and overlooked in the shuffle. May God have mercy on these precious lives!