Strollerderby : Guatamala

DNA Test Proves Baby Sold for Adoption

Madeline Holler — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:01:00 GMT

Adoptions from Guatemala were abruptly halted in May to give officials a chance to investigate the country's troubled $100 million adoption industry. Now, DNA tests have confirmed that at least one chid was stolen and eventually sold for adoption, a practice some have suggested is widespread.

The girl, reported stolen more than a year ago, was found by her birth mother recently while the little one was nearing the end of the process of being adopted by an American couple.

From MSNBC.com:

The baby's mother, Ana Escobar, said armed men locked her in a storage closet at the family's shoe store north of Guatemala City and took the 6-month-old.

"When I got out, my daughter was gone," she told the AP in an earlier interview about the case.

She spent months searching hospitals and orphanages, looking for the child.

One day the mother was sitting at the National Adoption Council's office hoping to review documents that might show her daughter in the system, when she saw a toddler that looked like her daughter being carried into an office.

Escobar convinced officials to take a new DNA test, even though the DNA in the girl's records did not match Escobar's. The results came in: a match. The girls has been returned to her birth mother and all doctors and judges and lawyers, as well as the adoption agency, are under investigation.

Guatemala was known for relatively quick and easy adoptions, one reason it was second only to China in the number of children adopted internationally before the May freeze. But many inside the country -- and some international agencies -- believe there is rampant abuse in the system. In May, a dozen adoptions in process were canceled. Reports of stolen children have also grown in that country over the years.

Photo: guatemalanadoptionsblog.com

The Jolie-Pitts Need to Pick Up the Pace

Madeline Holler — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:02:00 GMT

Not even Angelina Jolie could turn these numbers around. International adoptions in the U.S. have fallen dramatically for a third year in a row.

State Department figures show that only 19,411 children were adopted by Americans from foreign countries last year, a decrease of 15 percent in the past two years.

The huge drop is due to tougher requirements in two countries – China and Russia -- where most children have been adopted into the U.S. in recent years. As waiting times strectched in China from 8 months to 2 years, families started looked elsewhere for children. Russia suspended all out-of-country adoptions this year, until it could reaccredit the agencies handling their adoptions. Both countries are trying to boost adoptions within the country.

Angelina Jolie certainly brought international adoption into the spotlight, but even before she snatched up baby Maddox and brought him back to Hollywood, foreign adoptions had been on a fast and steady increase since the early 1990s, tripling until they reached a peak of 22,884 children in 2004. The number then fell by more than 2,000 kids in 2006.

According to State Department figures: “U.S. adoptions from South Korea and Haiti also declined significantly, although the overall drop was partially offset by large increases in adoptions from Guatemala (up from 4,135 to 4,728), Ethiopia (732 to 1,255) and Vietnam (163 to 626).”

Adoptions from Guatemala will also drop drastically for the next couple of years as that country suspends adoptions and in an effort to ensure the legitimacy of the whole process.

Guatemala to Suspend Adoptions

Madeline Holler — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:08:00 GMT

After growing unease with his country's adoption process, the president of Guatemala said he will suspend adoptions from his country starting Jan. 1, 2008, leaving 3,000 children already in the process of being adopted in limbo and countless other families mulling adoption to look elsewhere in the world.

The country's president said he is taking the measure -- seen by some as extreme in that it ignores the fate of what will quickly be thousands of abandoned children -- amid growing concerns about the current system, which opponents say has led to paying mothers for children or coercing them to give up their babies.

An average of 17 children born in Guatemala leave the country for the United States every day with the parents who adopted them. Guatemala has long been considered a place where adoptions are relatively fast and uncomplicated. The Central American country is behind only China in the number of children adopted out to American families every year.

Guatemala has the highest per capita rate of adoption of any country in the world. One of every 100 children born in the country is adopted internationally. American officials say 5,000 adoptions have been approved this year, an all-time high for Guatemalan adoptions to the U.S. American officials also say that last year's 4,000 adoptions were legal and untainted by any problems.

Hotels, lawyers, social workers and some orphanages and foster families have built up businesses around Guatemalan adoptions, which cost an average of $30,000 to process and include at least two trips to the country before bringing baby to a new home permanently.

Adoption has been hotly contested for years there, too, with some people claiming the fact that the process is run by lawyers and social workers -- not the government -- leaves it vulnerable to undesirable practices, such as baby selling or stealing.

NPR's recent report on the country's adoptions looks at charges against a recently raided agency in Guatemala, which was shut down pending charges of exchanging cash for children. The owners, an American and a Guatemalan, deny the charges.

International adoption has become very visible -- and even more attractive, some might say -- thanks to celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Mary-Louise Parker and others Hollywood stars. But it is a subject that is fraught, made even more so whenever accusations of baby-buying surface.

Still, who doesn't know a family who has created a family through international adoption? What do you think? Is Guatemala solving a humanitarian crisis but shutting down adoptions or is it creating one?

International Adoptions Slowing Down Despite Jolie-Pitt Singlehanded Attempts to Adopt Every Orphan

Karen Murphy — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:08:00 GMT

It's bad news again for would-be adoptive parents looking to bring home a baby from overseas: the waits are getting longer with little relief in sight. Not surprisingly in the convoluted world of international adoption, this conflicts with the justification heard not long ago when China tightened restrictions on potential adoptive parents, claiming at the time that the new regulations would reduce the wait time. So far, it hasn't happened: in fact it's more than doubled.

In addition, several countries have shut down their foreign adoptions altogether: countries having done so or that are experiencing prohibitive delays include China, Guatemala, Ukraine, Nepal, Russia, and South Korea. International adoptions only represent about 25% of total American adoptions. The recent added wait times for international adoptions are making domestic adoption through the foster care system more appealing than it once was (there's still an enormous amount of bureaucracy to wade through no matter how you slice it). Unless your name is Angelina Jolie, in which case the Adoption Gods just seem to smile endlessly.

On the flip side, several countries are opening up adoptions a little more which may help ease things, and huge increases are being seen in African countries like Ethiopia and Liberia. And Malawi. I just hope that all the countries concerned are really attempting to ensure that the best possible families are found for their children who need homes, and that they just aren't preying on susceptible, desperate and hopeful parents.