Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / July 2007

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/19/america/LA-GEN-Guatemala-Stolen-Baby.php

Guatemalan police rescue baby stolen, possibly to be offered for
adoption

The Associated Press
Published: July 18, 2007
GUATEMALA CITY: Guatemalan police rescued a two-month-old boy who had
been stolen from his home and arrested four people who were allegedly
preparing the baby for illegal adoption, an official said.

The rescue comes amid growing concerns about the Central American
country's export of thousands of babies each year to adoptive parents
abroad.

It was unclear where the baby was to have been sent, but police
detained four people in the house where the baby was rescued and found
a false birth certificate for the boy, said Jesus Esquivel, assistant
chief of criminal investigations for the police force.

"Our investigations indicate that they were already at the stage of
processing the adoption," Esquivel said

However, Guatemala's Attorney General's office, the institution that
oversees adoptions, said that so far no application for an adoption
process for the baby, either under his real or false name, had yet
been found. The baby could have had another fake birth certificate or
the suspects may have not yet filed the adoption application.

The suspects include the owner of the orphanage where the child was
found and three employees. The boy was reportedly stolen from his
parents' home in June.

Officials provided no details the abduction of the child.

The U.S. State Department, citing rampant problems of fraud and
extortion, said in March it no longer recommends that Americans adopt
children from Guatemala. U.S. officials have said there were frequent
cases of birth mothers pressured to sell their babies and adoptive
U.S. parents targeted by extortionists.

Under Guatemalan laws, unregulated notaries act as baby brokers who
recruit birth mothers, handle all paperwork and complete adoptions in
less than half the time it takes in other countries.

Under that system, more than 4,000 Guatemalan babies were adopted by
U.S. parents last year, making Guatemala the second highest source of
U.S. adoptions after China.

In May, the Guatemalan Congress ratified Tuesday an international
adoption treaty that could sharply reduce the number of Guatemalan
babies adopted by U.S. citizens each year. The Hague Convention on
Intercountry Adoptions requires that government agencies regulate
adoptions to ensure babies have not been bought or stolen.

It would be unlikely this stolen baby would have been adopted by an
American family due to mandatory DNA testing required by the U.S.
embassy to grant the infant a visa.