The Guatemalan Congress has passed the first two readings of the adoption legislation now called Bill 3735. The third reading will be passed in a special session, and there is doubt if there will be a quorum then. This could mean that the bill will not be passed and will await the new congress in January.

With so many amendments to the Ortega Bill, a new bill was created, and it included suggestions made by the The Hague Permanent Bureau and the US DOS. According to Susana Luarca from the ADA, this is not good legislation, and to some degree she blames the Department of State for putting intense pressure on the congressman of the Guatemalan congress to pass it in the first two readings.

There is a grandfather clause in this bill, and apparently adoptions already in process will need to be recorded within thirty days after the new law becomes official. That doesn’t sound like time enough for lawyers to register 5,000 adoptions; actually it would be downright impossible.

It is misery all around in my opinion. Hopefully there will be flexibility on the part of the Guatemalan government when they see things that don’t work, otherwise, chaos will ensue. The Department of State has put a tremendous amount of pressure on Guatemala to pass a bill quickly. It is easy for the DOS to do this; they just have to threaten to take away funding of one kind or another.

Yes, big brother definitely has an agenda here, and I believe that they really want this Guatemalan adoption problem to “go away.” Having citizens of the US involved in “child stealing” from another country just can’t continue! The media has spent so much time damning Guatemalan adoptions and flaunting it for the whole world to see, and that, in my opinion, has put pressure on Guatemala as well, now a country whose number one export, according to cynics, is apparently babies.

Once in a while we read articles or see programs on TV about child prostitution, child slavery, and street children. It is a horrifying and unfortunately will be the future for some of the Guatemalan children who are not allowed to be adopted. Others will suffer malnutrition, illness, homelessness and probably not ever become literate, get an education, and have a different future than their parents. Maybe then we’ll hear as much about these unfortunate children as we did about the negative effects of adoption.

Is that what it takes?

photo credit

Guatemalan Street Children