IPS-English GUATEMALA: New Law to End Adoption Business Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:51:20 -0800 Inés Benítez GUATEMALA CITY, Dec 11 (IPS) - The Guatemalan Congress approved a new law Tuesday that will regulate adoptions in the framework of the Hague Convention, which goes into force in this Central American country on Dec. 31. ”We are pleased and happy with the approval of this law that will make the adoption process more transparent,” Attorney-General Mario Estuardo Gordillo told IPS. The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, ratified by the Guatemalan Congress on May 21, was created to ensure that international adoptions take place in the best interests of the child, and with respect for their fundamental rights, and to prevent the abduction, sale of, or traffic in children. So far this year, 3,406 Guatemalan children have been placed in adoption, only 36 of whom were adopted by Guatemalan families. The rest went to families abroad, overwhelmingly couples from the United States, according to sources with the Attorney-General's Office, which approves the adoptions. In 2006, 4,496 children were adopted, 10 percent more than in 2005. In Guatemala, the entire adoption process takes no longer than a year. Prospective parents, almost all of whom are from the United States, shell out between 25,000 and 30,000 dollars, which covers travel expenses, the paperwork and legal costs. The adoptions are processed under notaries rather than judges, which makes the process exceptionally fast compared to international adoptions in other countries. That has made Guatemala the fourth country in the world in terms of the number of children placed in adoption, after Russia, China and South Korea, and the leader in proportion to the population, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). ”Today is a historic day for the country, because the foundations have been laid for putting an end to the theft of children to place them in adoption,” said parliamentary Deputy Edgard Alfredo Rodríguez of the centre-left National Union of Hope (UNE), after the law was approved by more than two-thirds of the legislators. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have long complained that children are stolen to feed the flourishing adoption market. In addition, ”jaladoras” or baby brokers convince poor young pregnant women to stay in ”casas de engorde” or ”fattening houses”, where the expenses of the pregnancy and birth are covered, and later to give up their babies in adoption. Héctor Dionisio, the legal representative of Casa Alianza -- the Latin American branch of the New York-based Covenant House, a child advocacy organisation -- applauded the new law, which he said was finally passed after more than a decade of efforts by his group and other NGOs. As he told IPS, ”Adoption has become a business here. Children are produced for export, distorting the meaning of adoption, which is to benefit children who do not have a family.” Dionisio said that Casa Alianza Guatemala has run across cases of ”couples who get pregnant in order to give up their children in adoption, or parents who encourage their teenage daughters to get pregnant, to earn money.” Although the bulk of the money goes to notaries, lawyers and other intermediaries, young women have admitted to receiving between 650 and 1,600 dollars -- a relative fortune for poor women in Guatemala -- for placing their babies in adoption, according to Nidia Aguilar del Cid, director of Defence of the Rights of the Child in the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. The new law is aimed at eliminating economic incentives from the process. Article 10 prohibits the biological parents and any other people, institutions or authorities involved in adoptions to obtain economic or other material benefits from the process. The legislation also creates a National Adoption Council, an autonomous regulatory agency made up of representatives of different public institutions that will ensure that children placed in adoption are protected, promote in-country adoptions and match each child with the right family. ”The creation of a central authority will imbue the adoption process with a sense of certainty,” Gordillo told IPS. The chairman of the congressional Commission on Minors and Families, Deputy Francisco Rolando Morales, commented to IPS that ”the adoption business in Guatemala will automatically be brought to a halt with the new adoption law and the Hague Convention. It's true that the number of adoptions will go down, but so will the theft of babies.” Activists and human rights groups describe the lawyers and notary publics involved in the lucrative adoption business as ”mafiosos.” But lawyers who spoke to IPS rejected such criticism and wondered what will happen now to thousands of poor babies who will not be adopted. The attorneys, who asked to remain anonymous, said that once the Hague Convention goes into effect, the adoption process will be slowed down, which will encourage prospective adoptive parents to look elsewhere for children. The lawyers said the excessive red tape required by the Hague Convention will hurt orphans or abandoned children who could otherwise have a much brighter future. According to official statistics, more than 50 percent of Guatemala's population of 13 million lives below the poverty line, although NGOs put the proportion closer to 80 percent. Most of the impoverished women who give up their children either willingly or as a result of pressure, coercion or deceit are indigenous or of mixed-race heritage. Indigenous people, who comprise as much as 65 percent of the population, have historically suffered from discrimination in Guatemala, and most of them live in poverty. The maternal mortality rate in Guatemala stood at 121 per 100,000 live births in 2005, according to the UNDP's second report on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. Aguilar said that many of the children who were adopted -- more than 20,000 in the last 10 years -- actually had families. ”Adoption is necessary for the country, but it has turned into a phenomenon of trafficking in persons, because of the economic incentives involved, which should not exist,” said the official from the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. Article six of the new law states that poverty or extreme poverty does not constitute a sufficiently valid reason for parents to give up a child in adoption. ”Today the insecurity hanging over all those children who faced the possibility of being sold as merchandise has been removed,” Morales told Congress a few minutes after approval of the law, which like the Hague Convention will enter into force on Dec. 31. Nineth Montenegro, a lawmaker with the centre-left Encuentro por Guatemala (EG), urged her fellow legislators ”to oversee those who have used ‘casas de engorde' to carry on a trade with children.” NGOs and representatives of the Guatemalan government presented the problem of international adoptions in this country to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in an Oct. 15 hearing. Up to now, adoptions were governed by the Civil Code, the Law on Integral Protection for Children and Adolescents, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and there was no specific law or central regulatory authority for adoptions. The U.S. government hopes to ratify the Hague Convention itself in the first half of 2008, a U.S. diplomat in Guatemala told IPS. So far, 71 countries, including Guatemala, have acceded to the international treaty, which was approved in 1993 and went into effect in 1995. But Guatemala does not yet apply the Convention, because in August 2003 the Constitutional Court declared this country's accession to the Convention unconstitutional. In addition, five parties to the Convention -- Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom -- objected to Guatemala's adhesion, and suspended adoptions from this country because of procedures that are not in compliance with the treaty, irregularities detected in adoption procedures, and reports of the buying and selling of children and baby theft. An Aug. 2 press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala stated that ”in response to concerns about the unregulated adoption process” in Guatemala, the Embassy now requires ”a second DNA test, to verify that the adopted child for whom an immigrant visa is being requested is the same child matched at the beginning of the adoption process with the birth parent.” ***** + RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: New Rules for Lucrative Adoption Business (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39673) + GUATEMALA: Whitewash for 'Adoption Paradise' (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38041) + GUATEMALA: The Dark Side of Five-Star Adoptions (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36611) (END/IPS/LA HD IP CS/TRASP-SW/IB/07) = 12120400 ORP003 NNNN