Mirror of Justice

International Adoption – the Children of Guatemala

July 15th, 2009 at 12:18am Under Adoption Law

In the world of International Adoption, Guatemala is one of the most popular and least regulated Countries. Last year there were estimated to have been 1,500 Guatemalan Children and Babies who have started fresh lives abroad, but the spectre of Illegal Adoptions have haunted Guatemala for years. Stories have emerged of mothers being forced to give up their new born children and of a booming private adoption business that has now grown almost into a multi million pound industry.
One of the key questions to look into is, are illegal adoptions taking place and if so how widespread is the practice? Finally, what is in the best interests of the Children of Guatemala?
“With Overseas adoption, what is in the best interests of the children of Guatemala?”
Whilst organisations, such as UNICEF, do not claim that all of the overseas adoptions coming out of Guatemala are illegal or abusive, a new report issued from the organisation does highlight the increasing problem of child trafficking.
“Overseas adoption arose directly out of Guatemala’s harrowing history.”
Overseas Adoptions and International adoption arose directly out of Guatemala’s harrowing history. The 36 year civil war which ended officially only four years ago left nearly a quarter of a million dead or disappeared and one million homeless, half of them children.
Elizabeth Gibbons is the director of UNICEF, and a leading critic of adoption as practised in Guatemala:
‘Many, many orphaned children were taken into adoption by military officers sent into international adoption. Originally a humanitarian activity, but it became obvious that it had the potential for being a lucrative business. And the higher demand in the West the more birth control, more access to abortion so you have the problem of a huge demand, therefore a supply must be created.’
In recent years there has been a tightening up of controls in many of the major embassies and the UK, US and Canadian embassies now carry out DNA tests of both the birth mother and the baby to check out that the woman giving the baby up for adoption is the real birth mother.
‘The existence of DNA doesn’t in any way tell you whether the mother is willingly giving up the child or whether she is being coerced. The second concern is that the children who pass the DNA test are not the same ones who go with the adopting parents on the plane, they could be switched. And thirdly, that the child who is rejected for having a negative DNA result by one of three embassies that offer this test, can then be offered to another embassy with parents of a another nationality.’
‘No one respects the law or the state; everybody just does their own thing. And it’s the same with adoptions’
So with all of this abuse of the system going on, why hasn’t the government of Guatemala done anything to stop it. The general consensus is that Guatemala is in chaos with the country, now a fledgling democracy, only just emerging from under the shadows of years of Military rule
Guatemala is a difficult place from which to operate from and it is very hard to know who is in charge of what. There doesn’t appear to be a Minister in charge of Social Affairs and Adoption is very much bottom rung on the ladder.
The Chair of the Commission on the Child and the Family in the Guatemalan Parliament is Nineth Montenegro who is a vigorous critic of her own system and is campaigning to pass the “The Children’s Code” to protect the rights of the Child in Guatemala explains:
‘We’ve been working on it for three years now and parliament still hasn’t passed it. They say, if we try to regulate adoption in this way we will deny children better opportunities in wealthier countries. There has been terrible resistance to the new law. You know Guatemala is a democracy only in name, not a real democracy.
No one respects the law or the state; everybody just does their own thing. And it’s the same with adoptions.’
Part Two of this article will deal with the fun and games (euphemism for hassle) of dealing with Lawyers and Orphanages

International Adoption: Unicef’s and Other Critics’ War Against International Adoption

July 12th, 2009 at 12:18pm Under Adoption Law

UNICEF has been waging war against international adoption for many years contrary to popular understanding.  It’s a war with results that fall far short of real time solutions to the spoils of its victories.  UNICEF’s premise that parents in underdeveloped countries should be provided the means to keep their children is not arguable.  Neither is UNICEF’s stance that international adoption should only be a last resort.

However, UNICEF’s tough and effective pressure tactics and  lobbying efforts towards developing nations calling for ratification of the Hague Treaty for the Protection of Children and implementation of adoption law and policy models which effectively serve to close programs completely or almost completely to foreign adopters belies a misguided, unrealistic and out of touch policy contrary to the best interests of hundreds of thousands of legitimately orphaned and abandoned children around the world. These efforts have resulted in the semi or complete closure of adoptions around the world in such countries as Guatemala, Bulgaria, Paraguay, and Romania to mention just a few examples. Let’s take the example of Guatemala.  After intense pressure from UNICEF, Guatemala finally closed its doors to international adoption on December 31, 2008.  Prior to that time, foreign nationals adopted approximately 5,000 Guatemalan children per year.   Oscar Avila, “Guatemala Seeks Domestic Fix to Troubled Overseas Adoptions,” Chicago Tribune, October 26, 2008 indicated that “Guatemala has launched an ambitious campaign to recruit foster parents and even adoptive parents at home.”  So far, the program is failing miserably.  Avila reports, “Only about 45 families in a nation of 13 million currently have taken in foster children since the program began this year.”

The approach that Guatemala is taking by attempting to gain domestic attention to the problem is certainly meritorius; however, this approach could and should have been implemented concomitant with an international program which would ensure that thousands of children will find homes rather than waste away in institutions that are often underfunded, understaffed and unable to provide for the needs of these children.

One of the main criticisms of the Guatemalan adoption program prior to its closure was that it was in the hands of private attorneys who depended on sometimes unscrupulous middlemen to procure birthmothers wanting to give up their children and perhaps those not wanting to give up their children.  Of course this depiction glosses over the nature of how this practice developed in remote villages in Guatemala, far from the lawyers in Guatemala City who could arrange adoptions by foreign nationals.  It was a practical way to connect birthmothers, who were seeking adoption as an option to their usually dire circumstances, to attorneys who could then take the children into custody through the use of foster homes and then place the children with families abroad through adoption proceedings.  It is interesting to note that neither UNICEF nor the Guatemalan government could see that there could be a middle ground to solving the problem of unscrupulous middlemen who were supposedly forcing these women to give up their children, paying the women as an inducement, or even, as many reports claimed, kidnapping these children for adoption.  Many of these reports glossed over the fact that birth mothers had to relinquish their child to an attorney advising her of her rights, undergo an interview with the Family Court, DNA testing of the birth mother and child, review by the Guatemalan Solicitor General’s office, and once again, the birth mother’s consent to the adoption after the Solicitor General’s approval.  The Embassies regularly interviewed birth mothers and conducted investigations at random or of cases that appeared questionable.   During the last year of adoptions in Guatemala, a 2nd DNA test was required at the end of the process based on accusations of child switching with unimpressive findings to back up these wanton allegations. 

Avila’s report indicates that the Guatemalan Department of Social Welfare has now created satellite offices all over the country in an attempt to increase its pool of families interested in fostering or adopting these children.  Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of reform that many adoption attorneys called for which would remove involvement by middlemen but allow attorneys to work with the Department of Social Welfare in concert with its ongoing program to promote foster care and adoption domestically.  UNICEF would not come to the table nor would the Guatemalan government which was eager to completely shut the door on international adoption in response to UNICEF’s strong and effective lobbying efforts.

Another example of misguided criticism regarding international adoption is in Malawi, where the infamous Madonna adoption took place.  Malawi is a country of 13 million and approximately 1 million are orphans half of which are “AIDS orphans”. Solutions are slow in coming in a nation beset by an AIDS epidemic infecting almost one fouth of its population.   These orphaned children deserve a chance at having permanent homes and families.  International adoption is not a perfect solution to the problem in Malawi and so many other nations of Africa but it saves lives, gives children a chance, one adoption at a time.

Of course, most would agree that international adoption should not be the sole answer to poverty faced by nations around the world.  No rational person would think so.  International adoption should be seen as a stopgap emergency measure taken while the United Nations, human rights groups, humanitarian organizations and the governments of these underdeveloped countries seek answers to the abject poverty, high birth rates, AIDS epidemic, malnutrition, lack of education, lack of women’s rights, and massive unemployment which lead to parents making these hard decisions about the future of their offspring.  International adoption is one temporary cog in the wheel.  UNICEF and other detractors and critics of international adoption have continually failed to recognize the vital emergency role of international adoption and how compromise and middle ground solutions could serve the orphaned and abandoned children.