The Lost Children of Guatemala

Baby stealing and adoption trafficking continue in Guatemala. The network of document falsification is widespread. Two methods of continued trafficking are discussed: moving pregnant women across the border to El Salvador and adopting the children out from there and foreigners registering babies as their own biological children with the assistance of people in Guatemala.

“Maria Leticia Ispaché spent just one night with her son, Christopher, after giving birth in Guatemala City’s Roosevelt Hospital. Throughout the night she listened to his small hesitating cries. The next morning, one by one, the women next to her in the maternity ward room were allowed to leave with their newborns. “I was alone with my baby when a nurse arrived,” she says. The stranger asked if the baby had already been vaccinated. She took the child and never came back. Leticia Ispaché alerted the hospital, the police and television channels. One year later, she says sadly: “We don’t even have pictures to look for him.”

Christopher has probably joined the horde of children who are the victims of adoption trafficking in Guatemala. In this country, 400 people under the age of 18 are stolen every year, according to the UN. “These acts are robberies or scams. The attackers take advantage of the poor, the Indians who can barely speak Spanish,” says Freddy Coty, a lawyer and a member of a foundation called Sobrevivientes, which has followed several cases.”

“In 2007, Guatemalan authorities for the first time stiffened the country’s adoption laws. Corruption, however, remains rampant, meaning children are still being shuttled out of the country under questionable circumstances. The trade is said to bring in $200 million a year.”

“And with the help of a UN judiciary body called the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), authorities are working to dismantle the networks that are thought to falsify at least six out of 10 adoption records. The networks are thought to include an army of scriveners, judges, doctors and directors of orphanages who falsify identities, DNA tests and photos.”

“The intermediary American agencies like Celebrate Children International were aware of what was really going on,” says Carolina Pimentel, a CICIG lawyer.

Today child trafficking has slowed but not disappeared. The country is considering a reform that would again give adoption agencies access to Guatemala. The reform would only benefit European agencies. In the meantime, individuals and associations are coming up with new tricks for adopting Guatemalan children. Some foreigners register their babies as biological children thanks to the help of crooked civil servants. And certain associations have been accused of sidestepping Guatemala’s freeze on foreign adoptions by taking pregnant Guatemalan teenagers to give birth in neighboring El Salvador.”
“Groups like Celebrate Children International, meanwhile, continue to operate – albeit not in Guatemala. Now, people can get in touch with the association to adopt children in Ethiopia.”

ADOPTION SCANDAL: THE LOST CHILDREN OF GUATEMALA
[Le Temps/WorldCrunch 7/28/11 by Vincent Taillefumier]

Previous Guatemala coverage can be found here.

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