NYHOMESTUDY BLOG

FOA was about to begin a campaign to support adoption friendly legislation in Guatemala, including our analysis of Bill #3635 and support of it as a Hague compliant law which could be implemented fairly quickly and would allow adoptions to continue with great government oversight. Please scroll down to see the introduction to this position paper.

However, Unicef and the Permanent Bureau of the Hague and our own Department of State have succeeded in getting the Guatemalan congress to pass the Ortega Bill (with at least 80 amendments and more to come). this is a bill which had no funding plan, no child care plan for children in the process, and no real plan for children to get into the process. Unless this law has changed considerably with the multiple amendments suggested, then my understanding is that once a child gets into the “system”, the relinquishing parent would have to wait while the government department violates her privacy by trying to find relatives who might care for the child. We don’t know who will care for the children who might be relinquished to the government authority —- those birthparents who manage to know about this option and manage to get down to Guatemala City to deal with government officials — presumably the orphanages who are now receiving children adjudicated by the courts (who are found on the streets, or who are removed from their families because of neglect or abuse).

However, the Bienestar has already told these private orphanages that they need to apply to become registered, then they might be “allowed” to care for the children, but if a child is adoptable, the orphanages who have cared for that child and many others, cannot receive a fee for that care. About 3/4 of the orphanages in Guatemala who care for children sent by the courts are supported SOLELY by donations and by adoption fees. Now there may be several thousand more children whose relinquishments supported thousands more. Many Hogares will have to close, displacing the children already in their care…
or trying to absorb many more children and extend their resources. This is truly a human rights and child welfare nightmare that the governments of Guatemala
and the U.S. have brought on. ALL IN THE NAME OF CHILD PROTECTION!!!!

I invite all who are “protecting the children” to visit the dumps of Honduras, El Salvador and Peru and look into the sad conditions of the overflowing orphanages in those countries. Organizations like UNICEF have stated that they don’t believe in institutionalization so they don’t really contribute to childcare. When confronted with problems the policies they espouse have caused FOR CHILDREN, they deny responsibility and state that “the governments are accountable and responsible for caring for their children”. In 2007 we are dealing with a truly puzzling and circular arguments, where what really works for children in the here and now, is not figured in the equation….

I don’t know if there is anything that we can do to reverse this horrible decision or mitigate against it… however I believe it is incumbant upon us to refuse to let the children of Guatemala become invisible the way the children of Honduras and Peru, Ecuador and Paraguay, El Salvador and Bolivia — protected by similar laws - have become invisible. They suffer even if no one “sees”.
Their suffering is even more profound for those of us who truly believe and know that there are loving families with open arms and hearts who would embrace them. Their suffering is more profound for those of us who adopted our children from countries which no longer provide this opportunity.

For years, whenever I complained about the effects of the Hague Treaty and its poor implementation in various countries, I was reassured that once the U.S.
became involved and ratified that this would change. Well, the U.S. has certainly become involved and their first international act regarding the Hague Treaty has been to destroy opportunity for thousands of Guatemalan children, and leaving the fate of thousands more homeless children to the indifferent governments who have never provided adequate funding or programs.

At what point do we as a community begin to bear witness? I think we should harangue congress to see IF this is what they envisioned when they passed the Intercountry Adoption Act of 2000.? I think we should contact ALL of our families - many of whom adopted from countries which are no longer “open” — and demand that we create a new policy regarding intercountry adoption, so it cannot be regulated out of existance.

Hannah Wallace, FOA