LAWLESS ADOPTIONS: Easy adoption cases have converted the country into one of the primary exporters of children to the United States.

By Eduardo Stein

Guatemala exports children, apart from other things. And as up until now it has been so easy, it has become a market of more than $400 million per year, between what adoptive parents pay over there and what they pay here.

In Guatemala, an adoption process, handled legally, ends up costing between US $30,000 and $40,000, from which they give US $3,000 to the adoptive mother (translator note = I’m sure he meant to say birthmother). The rest stays with intermediaries (lawyers, solicitors, crib houses etc)

With so much money involved, it was to be hoped that in turning the legal cases, considering how easy they are or perhaps precisely because they are a sordid and sinister field of baby business, where mothers are deceived, children are stolen to be commercialized (or even worse, to sell organs), and the stomachs of young women are contracted to have a diversified product year-round.

This administration intended to improve the regulatory framework to impede abuses and favor better oversight, in order to protect the rights of the boys and girls, as well as those of the biological parents. It is completely false that there was any plan to put the breaks on or suspend adoptions. It has always been an effort to achieve better guarantees and greater transparency.

The very tough resistance to better legislation with more controls was quite surprising. With arguments such as it would be depriving children in extreme poverty of a better life opportunity, or that more controls would generate more corruption (more bribes in the process), the very idea of an adoption law was attacked, and there have been objections to Guatemala joining the International Hague Convention on Adoptions.

This long and obtuse battle acquired another dynamic when finally Congress regularized such international membership, although it won’t even take effect until December 31.

The law proposal has taken up much time in Congress. Sordid and habitual resistance and maneuvers have delayed its discussion and approval. A group of Hague experts came in August to improve the text, with various adjustments and amendments so that the new law would conform better to the Convention.

If the honorable Congress considers adding more modifications and amendments that strengthen these protections for children and their parents, as well as transparency, congratulations. It is not the number of amendments, but their quality and sentiment that matter.

Legislating in the best manner possible, for the good of all of society, is its principal responsibility. We are certain that this will be the case.

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