adoptions in guatemala - protection or business?
The concentration of girls and boys in
Guatemala City and places nearby,
such as Antigua Guatemala and San
Lucas Sacatepéquez, makes sense in
the context of adoptions in the
country. Guatemala City is convenient
because that is where government
offices, consulates, notarial and
attorney-in-facts’ offices as well as
pediatricians’ offices and DNA
laboratories are located. Another
advantage is the existence of hotels
where the future adoptive parents can
stay and roads that make it possible
for them to go to the houses where the
children are cared for or for the
children to go to the hotels where
foreign couples are staying.
Places of residence of girls and boys who are in the
process of adoption
May - August 2007
Total number of cases: 1,083
Department
No. of children
Alta Verapaz
1
Chimaltenango
6
El Progreso
1
Quetzaltenango
5
Sacatepéquez
CUADRO 11
Municipality
No. of
children
Cobán
1
Chimaltenango
3
El Tejar
3
El Progreso
1
Quetzaltenango
5
82
Antigua Guatemala
45
Ciudad Vieja
2
Jocotenango
1
Magdalena Milpas Altas
1
1
Pastores
San Antonio Aguas Calientes
San Bartolomé Milpas Altas
Antigua Guatemala has the same
advantages and is also the tourist
destination offered by international
adoption agencies as part of the
adoption package. Another
advantage of Antigua Guatemala is
that it is located only a 40-minute drive
from where the immigration authorities
and the international airport are
located. San Lucas Sacatepéquez
has the advantage of being at an
intermediate point between
Guatemala City and Antigua
Guatemala.
In Guatemala City here are 527 cases
of girls and boys regarding whom
adoption notices have been given, and
there are eight areas, called zones,
where 89% of these cases are found:
zone 18, with 108 children; zone 5
with 69; zone 21 with 56; zones 6 and
7 with 55 each; zone 11 with 25; zone
3 with 21; and zone 10 with 16.
Santa Rosa
Sololá
Guatemala
Incomplete
address
1
2
San Lucas Sacatepéquez
18
Santa Lucia Milpas Altas
2
Santiago Sacatepéquez
5
Santo Domingo Xenacoj
1
Sumpango
3
Barberena
1
1
17
Sololá
17
Capital
527
Mixco
189
943
Villa Nueva
65
Petapa
39
Villa Canales
32
San José Pinula
25
San Juan Sacatepéquez
19
Santa Catarina Pinula
13
Amatitlán
12
Chinautla
5
Palencia
5
San Pedro Ayampuc
4
San José del Golfo
3
Fraijanes
3
San Pedro Sacatepéquez
1
San Raymundo
1
27
Source: Files of the Office of the Solicitor General of the Nation, Guatemala, 2007
189 girls and boys in the process of being adopted
are reported in Mixco. 82.5% of the places where
these children reside are concentrated in five zones:
zone 6 with 46 children; zone 11 with 38 girls and
boys; zone 1 with 28; zone 5 with 26; and zone 4
with 18 children.
65 girls and boys who are in the process of being
adopted live in Villa Nueva. The three zones where
most of them reside are 12, 3 and 5, where 45% of
the children are concentrated. 39 girls and boys are
registered in San Miguel Petapa, where 67% of the
children are concentrated in zone 7. 32 girls and
boys who are in the process of being adopted live in
Villa Canales. 65% of the cases are concentrated
in zones 1 and 2 of that municipality. 69 girls and
boys in the process of being adopted live in San
José Pinula, San Juan Sacatepéquez, Santa
Catarina Pinula and Amatitlán están ubicados 69
children y niñas en proceso de adopción. There
are between 1 and 5 children in the remaining
municipalities.
The
mapping that was done based on
the adoption files made it possible to
establish the existence of “crèche
neighborhoods” and “crèche sectors”.
Creche neighborhoods are those containing
family homes in the same neighborhood,
where girls and boys are cared for until they
are handed over to their adoptive parents.
Creche sectors are clusters of neighborhoods
where girls and boys who will be given up for
adoption live. Creche sectors are also found
outside of condominiums and neighborhoods,
and the link is determined by the closeness
among the addresses.
Typically, most crèche sectors and neighborhoods
lack government control. People who live in these
sectors and neighborhoods have been impacted by
inflationary pressures. In spit of that they have a
home, usually solidly built and with the required
services, but there is crowding, with an average
number of 4.5 inhabitants. In these homes, adult
women who have a low educational level are part of
the economically inactive population. They cannot
get paid jobs that would enable them to improve
their standard of living. They are offered earnings
of 500 to 3,000 quetzals for the care of babies, girls
and boys who will be given up for adoption25.
In addition to private houses where
one to three children can be found,
there are houses that operate as
crèches or can be assumed to be
crèches. Two of such houses were
identified in Guatemala City; two in
Antigua Guatemala, one in Sololá and
one in Santiago Sacatepéquez. Most
of these crèches are found in the more
privileged zones and areas. They
have the appropriate infrastructure to
care for several babies, they have
different types of staff and in most
cases they have a legal
representative.
The relationship among the places
where girls and boys who are in the
process of adoption reside is
established not only based on the
proximity of the homes where they
are cared for, but also because
these caregivers are often related;
they are sisters, spouses, or
mother and daughter, for instance.
This leads to the assumption that
there are groupws of neighbors or
friends who are engaged in this
business.
98% of the girls and boys who will
be given up for adoption are cared
for by private persons, most of
whom are not licensed to provide
this service. These houses are
illegally visited by future adoptive
parents, since there is no
supervision or evaluation by
competent State authorities to
determine whether they are suitable
adoptive parents for the child. One
can also assume that these persons
have no specific training in caring for
children but give them adequate
care, since receiving payment and
staying in business depends on that.
25
Latin American Institute for Education and Communication (ILPEC), 2000. Adoption and Rights
of the Child in Guatemala. UNICEF. Guatemala.
43
adoptions in guatemala - protection or business?
This, however, is no guarantee that
the children will be safe from hostile
environments, where they can suffer ill
treatment, abuse and poor care.
Some of the crèches are legally
registered, but are not subject to any
type of follow-up, evaluation or
systematic supervision by the State, to
guarantee the health, development
and human rights of the girls and boys
whose adoptions are being processed.
Needless to say, the addresses
recorded in notarial adoption notices sent to the
Office of the Solicitor General of the Nation do not
constitute sufficient proof that the girls and boys
reside at that address, since false addresses have
been given in several instances. The Office does not
ascertain the place of residence of these girls and
boys, which threatens their safety and rights,
including their physical safety and even their lives.
4
2. Trafficking in girls
and boys
In
addition to the data on international adoptions,
this chapter analyzes statistics on the kidnapping and
disappearance of children, as well as information on the
purchase and sale of children and surrogate mothers or
“wombs for hire”, used to obtain girls and boys that will
be given up for adoption.
The Police has received information on the
existence of bands of individuals who engage in the
theft, kidnapping and disappearance of children.
This has given rise to trafficking in children for
international adoption, commercial sexual
exploitation and child pornography. In certain
cases, the reason for the theft of newborns and girls
and boys up to 5 or 6 years old is their sale to
couples who are unable to conceive. These
children are stolen, kidnapped and made to
disappear and given up for adoption. When the
children are between the ages of 6 and10, they may
be used as domestic servants, for forced labor, the
sale of merchandise and even child pornography.
Adolescents aged 11-17 might be incorporated into
the prostitution business and used to produce
pornographic material. There is a serious gap in the
Guatemalan legislation, which does not criminalize
the kidnapping of children. The practice is morally
wrong and illicit, but not illegal. Until the Criminal
Code is reformed, people accused of the theft and
disappearance of children should be accused of
kidnapping, since this crime is penalized by the law,
under article 201 of the Criminal Code.
26
Vitit Muntarbhorn, First United Nations Special Rapporteur on this mandate. E/CN. 4/1994/84.
Paragraph 31.
27
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution andChild
Pornography, Mrs. Ofelia Calcetas Santos (E/CN.4/2000/73/Add.2)
As far as the sale of children is
concerned, the first United Nations
Special Rapporteur who received this
mandate defined it as “the transfer of
a child from one party (including the
birth parents, guardians and
institutions) to another, regardless of
the purpose, in exchange for financial
or other compensation”26. the sale of
children was defined as “the transfer
of parental authority and/or physical
custody of a child to another party on
a more or less permanent basis in
exchange for physical compensation
or other consideration. This definition
excludes temporary transactions such
as the” rental of children” and clarified
the confusion regarding whether this
action constitutes sale or trafficking.
The sale of a child thus constitutes
trafficking27.
For several years, and more
frequently in the last few months,
there have been reports on the “sale
of children” by their own mothers,
fathers or birth families. This practice
has been linked to international
adoptions. The transaction is actually
a purchase and sale of a child. On the
one hand there is the person who sells
the child, and on the other the person
who consents or promotes its sale. It
is also known that the sale of children
is often associated with deceit and
coercion on the part of the buyers.
These take advantage of the mothers’
status and material needs, their low
educational level and their lack of
knowledge of Spanish and their
ignorance of their rights or their
vulnerability when away from their
places of origin. The purchase and
sale of children are also linked with
the theft, kidnapping and with women
who engage in the business of having
children for sale.
There are also surrogate mothers, or
“wombs for hire”, women who get
pregnant on purpose and then sell their
children to persons or crèches or
through hospitals that are involved in the
adoption business. Unlike what
happens in other countries, these
women do not appear in catalogues
where each womb for hire can be worth
$80,000, or where the future parents
contact the woman who will rent them
their womb and become pregnant
through in vitro fertilization. Women
have babies clandestinely and then sell
them to the highest bidder. This study
was unable to document specific cases.
2.1. Theft and
disappearance of girls
and boys
2.1.1 The Victims
Two types of victims can be identified: girls and boys who
are stolen and mothers.whose children are stolen and
missing. The victims also include the fathers and birth
families, although according to the cases studied, most of
the time it is the women who are the direct victims of the
theft of a child.
Stolen and Missing
Children aged 0
months to 10 years
Total number of cases
77
Stated in absolute values
60
GRAPH 8
59
Stolen
Missing
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
0 months - 10 years
0 months - 5 years
Source: Files of the Office of the Solicitor General of the Nation, Guatemala, 2007
46
6 - 10 years
Sstolen and missing girls and boys
January-December 2006 and January-July 2007
Stated in absolute values
GRAPH 9
160
142
140
120
100
77
80
60
40
20
0
January-December 2006
January-June 2007
Source: Files of the Office of the Solicitor General of the Nation, Guatemala, 2007.
Stolen and missing girls and boys
Stated in absolute values
GRAPH 10
117
120
Stolen
Missing
100
80
59
60
40
25
18
20
0
January-December 2006
Source: National Civil Police statistics,, 2007.
January-June
2007