Talking to my sister on the phone last night, she told me about an article on violence in Guatemala she had read in the Globe and Mail, an outstanding Canadian newspaper. The reporter’s interview painted a bleak picture of life in Guatemala through the eyes of gang members in jail, who are still controlling assassinations and arms and drug deals from cell phones in jail. It seems that these people are running the country and not the government.

Guatemala is a country in crisis: extreme poverty, chronic hunger and malnutrition, impunity and horrendous violence are widespread. Does this sound like a good time to halt adoptions?

When interviewed, one prominent gang member said this:

Mr. Santos was living on the streets when he was 5, he says. That is when his parents died. There was no one to take care of him, so he took care of himself. He tried joining Mara 18 when he was 7 but the gang wouldn't have him. He tried again when he was 9 - this time the gang said yes.

That’s right, there was no one to take care of him, and there is no one to take care of most of the homeless children now. All the 200+ orphanages in Guatemala are privately run by generous people or NGO’s, and there is no social welfare system in place. Street children roam around looking for food, sniffing glue to ease hunger pains and despair, and pimping themselves for money. Surely we should be doing everything we can to help find these children families before this happens.

And speaking of orphanages, what happens to the children once they have aged out of them? How many are prepared for life as functioning adults? I know these orphanages often do a wonderful job of taking care of the children, but they are not a replacement for families, even though many think otherwise, including UNICEF although they probably won’t admit to it.

Adoptions have come to a grinding halt right now in Guatemala while the system is being revamped, or so we are led to believe. However, I am deeply concerned that they will be closed indefinitely, and although I truly want the children born in Guatemala to be fortunate enough to be raised by their birth/first parents, until the conditions in Guatemala improve to the point where all children can be given what they need to thrive, the moral thing to do is give parents the opportunity to do whatever they can to ensure that their children will survive.