THE ADOPTIONS LAW A YEAR LATER

During 2008, many things happened in Guatemala, but none of them were good for the children. Even though there is a very clear and explicit sentence of the Constitutional Court dated August 13, 2003, ruling unconstitutional the approval by Congress of the Hague Convention, the new and politically oriented magistrates of such court, which may also be called “Office of Political Affairs of the Government”, instead of forcing the president of Guatemala to obey the sentence of the court and to denounce the Hague Convention, to disengage our country from such evil treaty, supported a position of “it is within the presidential powers to deal with international treaties”, that the Berger administration quickly translated into “The Hague convention is still valid and binding for Guatemala” and passed an adoption law that took effect on December 31st, 2007 that thus far has succeeded in preventing adoptions from happening.

After a year without new adoptions, the situation of the children in Guatemala is far from better. Fifty per cent of the children in the country suffer of malnourishment and many babies have died abandoned in public places. The situation is not getting better, as there is no social infrastructure in place to take care of the children who no longer will be adopted. Their alternative is not to languish in public orphanages, because there are no public orphanages to take care of them. It is worse than that.

THE HAGUE CONFERENCE FOR INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE LAW

The Hague Conference for International Private Law is an international entity that promotes treaties to uniform the legislation of the different countries. According to this entity:

“Personal and family or commercial situations which are connected with more than one country are commonplace in the modern world. These may be affected by differences between the legal systems in those countries. With a view to resolving these differences, States have adopted special rules known as "private international law" rules.

The statutory mission of the Conference is to work for the "progressive unification" of these rules. This involves finding internationally-agreed approaches to issues such as jurisdiction of the courts, applicable law, and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in a wide range of areas, from commercial law and banking law to international civil procedure and from child protection to matters of marriage and personal status.

Over the years, the Conference has, in carrying out its mission, increasingly become a centre for international judicial and administrative co-operation in the area of private law, especially in the fields of protection of the family and children, of civil procedure and commercial law.”

Those statements are not quite true, as many of their conventions have been agreed to by just a handful of countries and even some of them have no countries to support them. It seems that the main focus of The Hague Conference is to convince the authorities of the countries of origin of adopted children that it is in the best interest of the children to prevent their children from leaving their less developed countries, through international adoption. The jewel of the Hague Conventions is their convention about inter country adoption, known as the CONVENTION ON PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AND CO-OPERATION IN RESPECT OF INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION, concluded on 29 May 1993, entered into force 1 May 1995, which has 76 countries as members. The general result of becoming a member to the convention is to thwart international adoptions, either by setting up a central authority whose agenda is to stop any possible adoptions or to give the countries of destiny (First World Countries) a legal tool to deny entrance to their territories to the children of the sending Hague Countries, by arguing that “they are not Hague compliant”. Since the term “Hague compliant” is an elastic one that stretches out as much as they want, it is very easy to establish requirements of impossible fulfillment in order to prevent any attempt to approve adoptions by any of their citizens.

PROCURADURIA GENERAL DE LA NACION (PGN)

According to the Adoptions Law, to be grandfathered an thus finished according to the old laws, an adoption must have been registered at the National Council of Adoptions, within the thirty days of the law becoming effective. To register the processes with the NCA was an ordeal, because the Colom administration fired two of its three directors and appointed new people, but the appointees by Berger refused to leave their jobs to them, and after a month of legal actions before the courts, they gave up and left, giving only a few days to the new appointed directors to organize the registration of three thousand adoption processes, that was successfully done working around the clock.

Once the registration was done, we thought that the children would be leaving in the first half of 2008, since the then Attorney General was not talking to the NCA and the grandfathered adoptions were being approved without further delay. However, the plan was not to allow the children to leave the country so easily, and that is why the NCA, an entity that has nothing to do with the grandfathered adoptions, unable to show any accomplishments to justify their jobs, got fired Attorney General Gordillo, and appointed in his place Baudilio Portillo Merlos, one of their people. The new Attorney General came to the PGN with the express agenda of collaborating with the NCA and that is why they came up with the idea of interviewing the birthmothers and even the legal guardians of children already ruled abandoned and ordered to be placed for adoption by the courts of minors. Failure to comply with that illegal requirement rendered the adoption as a case that should be sent to the court of minors, for the protection of the children. The interviewers of the mothers were ruthless most of the times and treated them without respect. Indigenous mothers who did not speak Spanish were deemed incapable of giving a proper consent and their children were whisked away and sent to the court of minors to be protected. From May to August 31st. many interviews took place and even though a great deal of the children whose mothers were interviewed were approved, there are still many others whose adoptions are stalled.

The chief of the section of the PGN that gives the required opinion about the legality of the process, is Floricelda Polanco de de Leon, who has no qualms in sending the cases to the section of Childhood and Adolescence of the PGN, with instructions to run an investigation to establish the origin of the child, to locate the birth mother and to find a member of the extended family who would want the child, even after the same section of the PGN ran such investigation during the judicial abandonment process ins those cases that have a declaration of abandonment, and during the course of the process exhausted the possibility to return the child to the birthmother or to any of her relatives. The investigators assigned to the cases are allowed to keep the files in drawers that are never checked for progress, and nobody gives information about the status of the investigation.

Some of the Courts of Minors have been ruling that the birth mother interviews are illegal and that a child being adopted is not a child at risk, and therefore it does not need the protection of a legal process, ordering the PGN to issue the required opinion. Thus far, the PGN has been slow to respond to such order, mainly because the chief of the section of Childhood is still on vacation, but the PGN officers will have to comply with the court orders or face charges for disobedience. They should know that they are in power today and brought to justice tomorrow, like Gordillo, for instance, so they should be careful and do not abuse their power and approve the grandfathered adoptions without further delay.

The bureaucracy will always find a way to make things more difficult in order to justify their jobs, but what it is unacceptable is their refusal to do what they are meant to do, as Flory De Leon, chief of the section of Procuraduria is doing, by either holding up as many files as possible or by sending them to the section of Childhood and Adolescence to be investigated, which may take many months, depriving the child of the love of the love of their families.

It will be necessary to force the PGN to stop playing games and to do their work. The courts support our arguments that the birthmother interviews have no legal grounds and cannot be used as a reason to institutionalize a child, derailing his adoption process. The faster an adoption process is finalized, the better it is for the child. Bruce Harris sold the media the idea that clear, problem free and fast adoptions were the same as illegal adoptions, without proof to support his allegations. The Convention for the Rights of the children, a human rights treaty ratified by Guatemala establishes that the children need to be raised by permanent, loving families. Even a foster family is not a proper substitute for a permanent and loving family, so it is for the benefit of the children that the process of adoption should be as fast and as an easy as possible.

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF ADOPTIONS

A year later, ten million quetzals spent and only a handful of adoptions to show for, describe the so-called work of this entity that prides itself, not in the adoptions they accomplished, but how they have convinced the birthmothers wanting to place their children for adoption, to keep their children, regardless of the conditions the children will live in, forgetting that the best interest of the child is to be with a family who really wants the child and who can properly satisfy all the needs of such child. To keep a child just because adoptions are no longer possible is not the best for a child whose mother cannot provide for him.

Some days ago, the directors of some of the private orphanages who still have children, got an invitation to a seminar at Casa Ariana, a conventions place at Reforma Avenue, from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, including coffee breaks and lunch. The purpose of the seminar was to explain to the orphanage directors, the steps that must be filled out to register their orphanages at the NCA.

The first speaker was the new director of the NCA, Wendy Cuellar, who introduced herself and presented a woman from the Ministry of Education who explained in detail the requirements to register a school at such Ministry, which implies to have teachers and the necessary staff to run a regular school There was also someone from the Ministry of Health, who explained that an orphanage must have the necessary staff to run a health center in order to be registered at their Ministry. The orphanage directors asked the NCA if they could expect financial help from the State and the answer was that there is no budget for that, and that the private orphanages must fulfill all the explained requirements and be registered at the NCA before the end of January, which is totally unrealistic. The last speaker was Jaime Tecu, legal advisor of the NCA who told the hogar directors that there is no way that the private orphanages may place their children with families, as all the placements will be done only by the NCA, and that the income of the international adoptions will belong to the NCA, and not a cent will go to pay for the stay of the children at the orphanages. Some of the private orphanages are funded by churches or by private citizens who may or may not continue funding such places. The situation of the abandoned children is the least of the concerns for the current government, because it is oriented to build the political platform to promote Alvaro Colom's wife as presidential candidate in the next term, and since the children do not vote, they do not have a place in their agenda.

Casa Alianza is a private entity funded by Covenant House, a catholic entity based in New York, whose directors in Latin America have opposed and criticized the adoption legal system of the Latin American countries, especially its regional Bruce Harris, who was very vocal in his criticism of the Guatemalan legal system, saying that it was very weak and allowed all kind of abuses, which he only talked about but never was able to prove. Bruce Harris was fired by Casa Alianza when he was found out to have paid for sex to a male teenager in Honduras. The media news have reported this week that Casa Alianza is closing down its operations in Guatemala, due to lack of financial resources. About 99 children will be presented to the courts to be transferred to other orphanages, and all the employees will be fired, with severance payments that amounts to ten million quetzals.

According to the secretary of one of the Courts of Minors, they have no place to send any more children. She said that the workers of Casa Alegría, the only state orphanage for young children, have asked the court not to send them any more children, as they are very short of everything and the place is full. The entity in charge or running the public orphanages in Guatemala, the Secretaria de Bienestar Social de la Presidencia, far from enlarging its facilities to accommodate all the children who are not being adopted, is firing half of its staff due to lack of funds. Only three private orphanages are taking in children lately, said the court secretary, but it is unlikely that they will take all those children that Casa Alianza is abandoning.

The United States, after literally forcing Guatemala to become a Hague Convention member and to pass an anti adoption law, it is now saying that the US will not approve adoptions from Guatemala, because our new system is not according to the Hague Convention. Since no adoptions have been authorized thus far, how can the United States say that the system is not Hague compliant? If they new that the system was no Hague compliant, why did they push it so hard, in the first place? Many questions come to mind, because Instead of working closely with the Guatemalan authorities to make the system work, the US DOS authorities are totally disregarding it as unacceptable, forgetting their arguments to push for new legislation, when they stated that it was necessary to pass the adoptions law to prevent the children from being deprived of a family. We knew that the result would be the opposite and the lack of new adoptions has proven us right.

THE NATIONAL REGISTRY OF PERSONS (RENAP)

To complicate things even more, the RENAP started last year taking over the role of the Civil Registries of the Municipalities and that has created a bottleneck in many cases, although in some cases it has ended the abuses of some of them, like the Santa Catarina Pinula Civil Registry, that according to an agreement of the Municipal Council, established that the cost of a birth certificate that normally is of fifteen quetzals, if it was of an adopted child, it was of two thousand quetzals, a very steep amount that penalized something constitutionally protected, as it is the adoption and discouraged the locals from adopting a child that was born there.
The RENAP is playing along the PGN, by requesting the act of the interview to the birthmother in order to approve the recording of the adoption, as if that interview had any legal grounds. The process of recording an adoption is very complicated, but with diligence, it is being done and many children have left the country with their adoptive parents.

The Hague Convention is guilty of being the tool used to obstruct adoptions. With so appalling results, the Hague Convention should be denounced by all the countries as a total failure, but instead of that, The Hague Convention is advertised as a success based on the number of countries that became members to the convention, disregarding entirely that the children in the countries of origin are not being adopted and in many cases, the governments are unable to provide adopting parents for them in the way that it was done when international adoptions were possible.

The government of Guatemala is totally neglecting its obligation to provide mental and physical health to the needy children as well as their right to be fed, to be educated and to have social security, as none of those needs are being addressed by the Colom administration and to expect that the private sector will do it without the income of adoptions, is unrealistic and absurd. The problem now is that the children are being tossed in the garbage dumps when their mothers do not have the alternative of an adoption. The newspapers do not report abut those deaths, only the radio news programs do.

Talking to a congressman about the possibility of a change in the law, that would provide an income to the private orphanages, he said that by express orders of President Colom and his very powerful wife, Sandra Torres, adoptions must be stopped, because they give a poor image to the country. We believe that much worse the image of Guatemala will be when the mortality rate of the children and their mothers increase, because formerly many of the mothers who placed their children for adoption got medical care at private hospitals and were less exposed to infections or delivery complications. The rate of crime will increase too, as it has happened in Honduras and El Salvador, just to mention two neighboring countries where adoptions are extremely difficult and their children become hit men at eleven or twelve years old, taking advantage that at their age, they are not judged as criminals, but as children with behavioral problems.

Legal resources were filed by ADA last year and now the Constitutional Court must rule on them. When that happens, we will know if the Constitutional Court made a serious effort to recover the prestige of that institution or continues to be the arm of the people in power to do as they please, disregarding the law and most of all, that the children who are not wanted or cared for, need families and that they need them since the moment their mothers took the decision to give their children the chance to have families who really want and love them, not years later, after the bureaucracy gets tired of playing power games with their lives, or even worse, when they die of any easy or curable disease before their first birthday, as it is happening now.

The adoptions already registered with the National Council of Adoptions will be finalized according to the old rules, regardless of the birthmother interviews not having taken place, and despite what the deputy Attorney General says and does.

Those foreign families who have the authorization of their government to adopt, (for the US citizens, to have a valid i-600 filed before April 1st., 2008) are eligible to adopt a child from Guatemala according to the Adoptions Law. It is just a matter of making the NCA to understand that it is not in the best interest of the children to prevent them to have a family, regardless of where that family lives. It is not a matter of territory. It is a matter of life and death.

Susana Luarca, ADA.

THE CNA HAS NO JURISDICTION OVER GRANDFATHERED ADOPTIONS

The adoption processes registered before the National Council of Adoptions (CAN) according to Article 56 of the Adoption Law, are subjected to the laws effective at the moment when those adoptions were initiated. Since the CNA was created by a law effective AFTER that moment, such law is totally excluded of the grandfathered adoptions. Even if the adoptive parents would want to remove their adoption from the scope of the already chosen laws and place it under the Adoptions Law scope they could not do it, because once the laws that rule it were chosen, there is no legal provision that can reverse that situation.

Decree 54-77 of the Guatemalan Congress, which is the Law that regulates the notarial procedure of voluntary matters, such as adoptions, in its articles 4 and 32 states that adoption files must be submitted to the Procuraduria General de la Nacion (PGN) for its review about its legality and to issue an opinion within three days. The PGN may approve the adoption or may object it, but there is no legal provision that allows the PGN to abuse its power by demanding to interview the birthmothers as a condition to approve the adoptions, and to use the lack of such interview as an excuse to derail adoptions where the birth mothers have expressed their consent before notary who presides the adoption process, ratifying it with their signature and if they are illiterate, with their thumbprint and the signature of a witness, and before a Family Court appointed Social Worker, who interviews the birth mothers and the children. As a requirement of the US embassy, that later was adopted by all embassies and by the PGN, a DNA must be performed to prove the kinship between mother and child, and also an HIV test must be done to the birthmother to obtain authorization to apply for the visa of the child. In other words: the birthmothers have to sign off their children, not once but at least four times, and also they have to give their blood and their saliva before the adoption file is submitted to the PGN and there are no legal grounds to demand that the birth mothers also ratify their consent before the PGN.

The period to the arbitrarily mandated birth mother interviews expired, also arbitrarily, on August 31st. Those files without such interviews, are being rejected by the PGN, ordering that the Notary either presents the case to the Courts of the Childhood and Adolescence, or continues the process according to the Adoptions Law. As it has been stated, the Adoptions Law cannot be applied to processes already registered before the CNA.

The Courts of Childhood and Adolescence have jurisdiction over those children whose rights are threatened or are being violated. A child who is being adopted is NOT in either situation, and therefore, the PGN opinion has no legal grounds and the Judges of the Childhood and Adolescence have no jurisdiction over those cases.

It is hard to understand why is that the Guatemalan authorities, instead of helping the children whose adoptions are in its final stage, are set in finding ways to sabotage them. The PGN has always abused its power, but what they are doing now is beyond anything done before. We have seen how the list of requirements that the PGN demands, is changed on a daily basis and that there are no guidelines, because each reviewer has an opinion that also changes from file to file. But now, the PGN not only rejects the adoptions, but in those cases where the birth mother did not obey the illegal order to ratify her consent at the PGN, it has sent its people to snatch the child from their foster mothers. However, there are files that have been approved without the birthmother interview, and there is one file that also was approved, that not only lacks such interview, but has the deposition of the director of the hogar where the children are fostered, stating that they are no longer wanted by the adoptive parents, and therefore, the adoption should not proceed, signed by her and by the PGN and the CNA witnesses, and the PGN notary. This leads us to think that the adoptions of the unwanted children are approved, while the wanted and loved are not.

The CNA has as a self appointed President, Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios, a lawyer whose husband is Carlos Larios, the Chief of Staff of President Colom. Since she has nothing to justify the fifty thousand quetzales monthly salary that she awarded herself, and no intention of working for it, she has issued a communication stating that the CAN will not authorize any adoptions at this time, because the CNA is busy working on establishing guidelines to use in accrediting adoption agencies for intercountry adoptions and to focus on completing transition cases.
The communication of the CNA indicates that there were 883 cases that were not submitted by the August 31, 2008 deadline for the verification process. Those cases will be turned over to the Guatemalan courts as abandonment cases. In order to ensure that those cases get quick attention, CNA felt it was necessary to stop accepting new cases at this time.

The CNA is wrong. The children being adopted should not be turned over to the courts as abandoned cases, because those children have adoptive parents and in most cases, the birthmother signed a power of attorney to allow someone to sign the final deed of adoption on her behalf. And even if she did not leave a power of attorney, she may still sign the deed of adoption. The lack of interview does not disqualify the adoption and does not turn a loved and cared child into a case that merits the intervention of the Childhood courts.
As it has been said, the PGN is acting arbitrarily and so is the CNA. Grandfathered cases should be approved by the PGN without further delay and the CNA people should be doing something else to justify their salaries. The children being adopted are a lame excuse to halt adoptions and the guidelines are long overdue, but in no way justify their inactivity. For the sake of all the children who are not being adopted, we hope that someone has a change of heart and understands that the children cannot wait. Those who need a family need it now, not in January, not later.

The Guatemalan courts have been very reluctant to understand that the PGN is illegally abusing its power. The amparos filed have been denied, partly because the judges are afraid to take the side of those who do adoptions and risk a bad press attack, duly paid and orchestrated by UNICEF, and partly because they are jealous of the fees that the adoption lawyers make, according to the always biased press. However, it is necessary to keep using the legal resources to prevent that those adoptions that meet all the legal requirements, are derailed because they do not meet an illegal one. Since the amparo grants protection only to the person who demands it, every one whose birthmother did not appeared for the so called verification at the PGN should file an amparo to demand the approval of the adoption based on the illegal requirement by the PGN of the birth mother interview. The child you are adopting is not an abandoned child and should not be regarded as such. That child has a family who is waiting to shower him/her with love, kisses and comfort. Even if the adoption is not finalized, the person who is adopting a child has rights and now is the moment to exercise them, fighting for that child whose fate is very somber unless someone steps in to rescue him from the good intentions of the CNA and the PGN, entities that are following to the letter the antiadoption policies of UNICEF.

A.THE CNA IN THE NEWS and B. UPDATE ABOUT THE AMPAROS

Prensa Libre, July 9, 2008
TWO CHILDREN PLACED FOR ADOPTIONS UNDER NEW LEGAL SYSTEM

The National Council for Adoptions placed the first two children under the new adoption law of 2007, that tries to clean up an adoption industry infested with irregularities.

The first two infants placed are Jose, one year and seven months old, and Sandra, seven months old.

“We are giving priority to the domestic adoptions; these are the two first cases”, explained to the AP the coordinator of the multidisciplinary team of the National Council of Adoptions (CAN), Jaime Tecu.

The two minors were ruled abandoned by a judge who later found them a home with a Guatemalan family.

Tecu indicated that the international adoptions will not be rejected. “In fact, within the next days we will place an special needs child with an American couple”, he added.

The authorities did nor disclose the names of the children and of their parents to guarantee their private space.
The CAN has 58 cases of children who can be legally adopted and 89 adoption applications from couples. Only ten applications have been approved by the CNA.

In 2007 there were more than four thousand seven hundred adoptions under a system that allowed irregularities. With the new Adoption Law it is expected transparency in the processes.

Prensa Libre, July 11, 2008.

PP SUMMONS COUNCIL OF ADOPTIONS
By Sandra Valdez

The members of the CNA must go back to Congress on July 21st., bringing with them, already revoked, the act where Elizabeth De Larios was appointed president.

In a summons that the Patriot Party (PP) made to the members of the National Council of Adoptions (CNA) it was clear that such entity has not complied with all the deadlines that the Adoptions Law establishes, and has done actions that the law does not authorize them to do, as it is to create a board of directors.

According to Anabella de Leon, congresswoman of the PP, De Larios appointed herself as president of the CNA, which allows her to collect Q2,500.00 for each of the three weekly meetings, added to monthly Q20,000.00 for representative expenses.

For that reason, the PP congresswoman indicated that they summoned De Larios as well as Concha Barrientos and Rudy Soto, the three members of the CNA, to present to them, on July 21st., already revoked, the act number 2 of last February 8th., where the board of directors was created and De Larios was appointed as president for four years.

If they fail to comply, De Leon warned that she will request that De Larios be interrogated by the whole Congress.

Since both press releases are self explanatory, there is no need to add anything about the transparency and unquestionable honesty of the members of the CNA.

B. UPDATE ABOUT THE AMPAROS

The ruling on the first amparo is due any day now. It was filed by more than 105 notaries on January 30th. 2008, against the National Council of Adoptions, to obtain a ruling stating that the registration form of the CNA was illegal as it supplied unnecessary private information that violated the privacy of the birth mothers, the children and the adoptive families, and requesting the amparo court to state the legal limits of the CNa, that prevent such entity from interfering in any way in the grandfathered cases.

The second amparo was filed by the director of Association Primavera (a private entity that sponsors a temporary home for children in Guatemala City and another in Escuintla), against the PGN for snatching a girl who was already ruled abandoned by the Escuintla judge of Childhood and Adolescence; also for delaying the adoptions of the children at Primavera by requiring the birthmother interviews, which have no legal grounds, and therefore should not be a requirement to approve the adoptions It is in the final stage.

The Third amparo is against the PGN, filed also by the director of Primavera, for delaying the cases of the children at Primavera by requiring the birthmother interviews, because the period to do them, even if it were true that they had the right to do them according to article 57 of the Adoptions Law, it is long expired, as the period to supposedly to do them was thirty days after the law became effective and therefore, to state the obligation of the PGN to release without further delay, all the files of the children at Primavera, who were submitted for the approval of the PGN.

The Fourth Amparo was also filed by the director of Primavera against the PGN for holding up the file - since September last year - of a child at Primavera who needs a cornea transplant and who was ruled abandoned by the Mixco court last year, with the blessings of the PGN. Since its reception by the PGN, the case has been suspended for no reason while the child looses the sight of her right eye.

There are other amparos too, filed by birthmothers whose children were taken at the interviews at the PGN, that are being processed.

According to the statements of Jaime Tecu, over one thousand cases are still missing interviews.

The amparos are necessary because the PGN is not willing to approve the grandfathered adoptions, and are adding requirements that are not in the law and using any excuse, as it is a typo in a name, to order that such adoption must be submitted to a judge, when they very well know that no judge would touch an adoption case, after the vicious attack against the judge Maria del Carmen Berduo, spearheaded by Josefina Arellano, the infamous chief of the section of minors of the PGN who resigned last year.

ADA and some lawyers have filed constitutional challenges against the Adoptions Law that are pending before the Constitutional Court.

We would not be lawyers if we did not trust that the legal system has to restore the order that has been misused by the current authorities, who right now are keeping the children being adopted, from joining their forever families and in some cases, to get the medical attention that they so badly need.

FAQs: Responses to Questions Raised With ADA on Adoptions in Guatemala

The following is based on frequently asked questions that ASSOCIATION DEFENDERS OF ADOPTION (ADA) receives from parents whose adoption process were supposed to be grandfathered when the Adoptions Law made new adoptions impossible in Guatemala.

Question: The Guatemalan Solicitor General (Procuradoría General de la Nación or PGN) initiated new adoption procedures, including interviews with the birth mothers. Are those interviews legal?

Answer: No, the Attorney General has no legislative powers and by establishing such interviews as an additional step that according to the PGN has to be fulfilled, under threats of not releasing the adoption file or taking other kind of measures, the Attorney General is braking the law that orders the PGN to issue an opinion within three days.

Question: Since the interviews started taking place, has the PGN approved and released any cases?

Answer: Yes, the PGN has released some approved cases, but not all the cases that were approved by the former authorities have been released and not all the cases that had successful interviews have been released, either. Some cases have been released, where the reviewer demands the presentation of documents already in the file or the fulfillment of requirement without legal grounds. Those requirements are referred as previos, and there is no limit to the number of them.

Question: Why is the National Council on Adoption (CNA) involved in the registration of the transition cases?

Answer: The new adoption law which ended the notarial adoption process and established the legal requisites for Guatemala’s Hague-complaint adoption system specifically protected notarial adoption cases initiated prior to the law’s December 31, 2007 effective date. However, it stated that those cases would only be processed according to notarial procedures if they were registered with the Guatemalan Central Authority for the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption within 30 working days of the law’s effective date. It established that the Consejo Nacional de Adopciones is the Central Authority for Guatemala. As the Central Authority, the CNA is responsible for ensuring that the duties of the Convention are implemented in Guatemala. Since the Notarial adoptions do not have to be Hague Compliant, the notarial adoptions are out of the scope of the CNA, and therefore, their involvement has no legal justification. The former Attorney General, made that very clear and that is why he was removed. The current AG is willing to allow anything that the CNA wants.

Question: What is the U.S. Embassy doing to make sure that the Government of Guatemala doesn’t add new requirements to transition cases (those that were registered with the National Council on Adoption (CNA) before February 12, 2008)?

Answer: The US Embassy is not doing anything. The establishment of the birth mother interviews, the involvement of the CNA in the grandfathered adoptions and the taking by force and without a court order of children being adopted are clear displays of abuse of power that deny the rights of the adoptive parents to have their adoptions completed according to the laws effective until December 30, 2007. The birth mothers have consistently complained about the verbal abuse that they have to endure at the interviews, of the false offers of economical help, a house, medical and education aid that the interviewers offer them if they claim their children back, and how they make them sign blank papers. The US embassy denies all these facts and even though the interviews have no legal grounds, the US embassy refuses to demand that the CAN stays out of those adoptions, and that the PGN respects the grandfather clause and releases the files in a timely manner without asking for illegal and sometimes impossible to fulfill requirements.

Question: Is the new review process, including birth mother interviews, changes that the Guatemalan authorities recently implemented for these cases and that are intended to add an additional level of assurance that the requirements of the old law are actually being met?

Answer: No, the so-called review process that the Colom appointed PGN made mandatory is a clear abuse of power that has a different agenda. The review done by the PGN does not include a birthmother and child interview and much less, the participation of the CNA, and entity that has no legal right to be involved in the approval of cases initiated before the Adoptions Law became effective.

Question: We have heard that during the birth mother interviews, Guatemalan officials are offering money to the birth mothers as an inducement to withdraw their relinquishment and keep their children? Is this true? Who is present during these interviews and is anyone protecting the rights of the birth mothers?

Answer: The birth mothers are grilled by the officials from the PGN and the CNA. Those activities described are not standard practice for these interviews, but happen very often. Even the written acts of the interviews, signed by the people who conducts the interviews, state that the notary was asked to leave, leaving the birthmother alone with them, and the presence of the psychologist is to aid their goal of derailing the adoption. There is nobody to help the birthmother, not even professional translators. When an indigenous birthmother who does not speak Spanish is brought for interrogation, even if she brings a translator, the interviewers do not allow her to use her translator, bringing instead theirs, who is a cleaning lady who works at the PGN and if she does not speak the same language as the birthmother, as there are at least 21 Mayan languages, the child is taken away, as it has happened in at least two cases.

Question: After these new birth mother interviews, have any adoptions been invalidated? What is happening to these children?

Answer: The PGN has not the right to invalidate anything. According to the law, the PGN has to give an opinion that can approve the adoption, or require the fulfillment of additional requirements. If the notary disagrees with the opinion of the PGN, the case may be submitted to the Family Judge, who can disregard the opinion of the PGN and approve the case. A year ago, when the PGN realized that they were loosing control (and bribes) because the judges were approving adoptions, overruling the objections of the PGN, the judges were falsely accused in the press and intimidated by the bad and powerful publicity of Prensa Libre, with the result that now the judges are totally reluctant to approve adoption cases.

Question: When the PGN finds grounds to disapprove an adoption, what is the legal way to approach that situation and how is the PGN handling it now?

Answer: If the PGN finds grounds to disapprove an adoption, it must state so in the opinion that it has to issue within three days. The way they handle it now, it depends if the reason is found during an interview, the PGN interviewers take away the child, ripping him by force of the arms of the birth mother, caregiver or hogar director, then the child is taken to a court of Childhood and Adolescence, where the judge plays along, validating the rescue (as it is called) done by the PGN. Those judges who refuse to do it and give the children back to the hogars or to the caregivers, do not get any of those cases any more and are subject to investigation.

If the grounds to disapprove the adoption are found while reviewing the file, it can be sent to the section of minors of the PGN for investigation, which can take many months and sometimes even years, without notifying the notary, or the adoptive parents. If the investigation does not bring to the light anything wrong, the file is sent back to the reviewer, to find new reasons to object, as to justify the delay in releasing the file.

Question: Does the Procuraduria de la Niñez (Children’s Issues) of PGN, have investigative powers in the adoption processes?

Answer: Yes, but only after a judge has started a process of protection of the rights of a child and only with regard to those processes, not within an adoption process. If the PGN believes that a felony has been committed, they should refuse approval and present a denounce to the District Attorney. To conduct their own investigation is another abuse of power and a takeover of the role of another entity.

Question: Does the PGN have the power to remove a child from the home/foster family where s/he had been staying and place him in a child protection home designated by a Children’s and Adolescents’ Court Judge.
Answer: Nobody has to right to separate a child form his parents or caregivers against their will, only a judge, after he has verified that the child is subjected to mistreatment or neglect. Therefore, to take by force a child because under duress the birth mother said something that in the opinion of the interviewers does not sound right, is an absolute abuse of power ant the fact that a judge validates that, only proves how overpowering the PGN is, not that what they are doing is right.

Question: Is there any way to find out where a child has been taken after a hostile takeover by the PGN?
Answer: Since the people who cared for the child or the birthmother are not being taken into account, the court refuses to disclose to them the place where the child has been taken and even if they do it, to see the child it is necessary to file a written petition to see the child, which can be granted or denied by the judge. And even if the permission to see the child is granted, the new place where the child is, can refuse to allow visitors, because according to their by laws, visitors are allowed only one day each month, and that day was yesterday, for example.

. Question: Is there a special process for handling the following specific kinds of adoption cases:
• Special instances of adoptions that were in process but not registered as on-going cases before the February 12, 2008, deadline?
• Medical emergencies?
• Abandonments?
Answer: Under current Guatemalan law, any adoption case that was not registered before the February 12 deadline will be processed under the provisions stipulated in the new adoption law. But since the CNA and the PGN show absolute no respect for the February 12 deadline, that also ran out for the verifying process (Article 57 of the Adoption Law), and which is the cornerstone of the birthmother interviews, the CNA should register cases of children who were born last year, with the same ample mind that allows them to totally disregard their own deadline.

Medical emergencies are handled privately by the people who care for the children and there is no need to get an authorization from any State entity to do it, since they are not willing to provide any relief, anyway.
The abandonment processes of children started before the Adoption Law, can follow the same grandfather protection if they were registered with the CNA and if they were not, we state that they can still be registered, because deadlines are not being observed by the CNA.

Question: My lawyer is telling me that a child has been identified for me and that Guatemalan authorities are willing to process this case under the new law. Will my child qualify for an immigrant visa?

Answer: Under Guatemala Adoption Laws effective December 31, 2007, lawyers cannot refer children for adoption; all referrals must be made by the Guatemalan National Council for Adoption (CNA). The CNA is the Guatemalan Central Authority for Intercountry Adoptions and six months later is still trying to develop the procedures for referring children for intercountry adoption. After December 31, 2007, and until these new procedures are established and clarified, it would be unwise to accept any offer or make any payments for placement of an adoptive child from Guatemala.

Since the elimination of the notarial process was unconstitutional, a challenge before the Constitutional Court was filed some months ago. Its final ruling is due any day now and it will restore the notarial process, allowing those foreign parents whose government allowed them to adopt abroad (valid !- 600 for the Americans), to adopt a child. As soon as that happens, we will post it here. We hope that the US embassy does not use the visa card on the magistrates of the Constitutional Court, to influence the outcome, as they did with the congressmen to get the Adoptions Law passed. Since the number of parents who filed and kept valid their I-600 is rather small, the number of adoptions would also be limited.

Question: What can I do about the case of the child I am adopting and whose file has been stuck at the PGN for over a month?

Answer: The law says that when the authorities do not issue the opinion that by law they are obligated to give, in over a month, the petitioner can file an amparo to demand that they release the file. If everybody who is in that situation would do it, the PGN would understand that they cannot hold the files for as long as they want. It is an uphill battle, because in Guatemala the relief can be granted at the beginning of the amparo process or the court can wait until they hear arguments from all the interested parties, including the Ministerio Publico. Usually the courts take many months to rule on the amparo. In case they deny it, the appeal is filed at the Constitutional Court.

The amparo should not be confused with the judicial review that the Family Courts may do of the objections by the PGN. A year ago, after a merciless attack by the press to one of the judges who disregarded the previos of the PGN and approved several cases, the rest of the judges do not dare to touch the adoption processes and the Court of Appeals of the Family branch has sided with the PGN, leaving to the the PGN the freedom to object to whatever they want, and leaving the adoptive parents at the mercy of the PGN.

Question: Will I be able to bring home the child I am adopting and whose process seems to find countless obstacles?

Answer: If your place of residence is the United States, request the help of the authorities of your country, because even if the US DOS states that the review process is necessary, it is not and it violates the Guatemala laws, constitutes an abuse of power of the CNA and the PGN and foremost, it is hurting the children, by depriving them of the family they need to grow up as normal human beings. The validation of the PGN review process by the US embassy is wrong and your authorities should be made aware of that.

Question: Are there any news about the amparos filed by the lawyers?

Answer: An amparo filed by the director of a hogar was filed to demand: a) the return of a child who was taken away at the interview at the PGN, because even though the child had been ruled abandoned by a court of Childhood and Adolescence, a woman sponsored by a group called Sobrevivientes (Survivors) whose battle cry is the killing of women, but lately switched to attack adoptions with empty cribs and women lamenting the loss of their children for illegal adoptions, claimed that the child looked like the one she lost, even though she could not tell the same story twice and could not remember the date when she lost her child; b) to rule about the legality of the interviews and c) to order the PGN to release the files of the children t the hogar that has been withholding for over a month. The court, as usual, refused to grant the petitions, so an appeal was filed last Friday.

Other amparos have been filed by birthmothers whose children were taken by force at the PGN and they are still pending resolution.

Question: Will adoptions from Guatemala open again sometime?

Answer: If it is left to the CNA, adoptions do not stand a chance. They have no idea of how to do them and are not prepared to supply the level of child care that the lawyers and hogars have supplied thus far. When the private hogars close, and the children stop being cared for privately, the CNA will have to find the way to duplicate those services or simply close down their office, because without the income of adoptions, and with an unreasonable law that expects that the private institutions have a highly qualified staff, excellent facilities, nutritious food, and proper medical care but dos not allow them to charge for their services, it is highly unlikely that many of them will remain open.

Question: Is it likley that the child I am adopting will come home?

Answer: Provided there is nothing really wrong with the adoption process and the birth mother does not claim the child back, yes, the chances are that your child will go home, even if now it looks so unlikely. Do not loose the faith and keep demanding collaboration from your authorities, that in an election year are so willing to be in the good graces of the voters. Remind them that the vote of an adoptive parent could the deciding vote.

THE ABUSES OF THE PGN

Just when we thought that we had seen it all, the PGN/CNA amazes us with a new display of abuse of power of the worst kind. On Friday May 31st. was scheduled the interview of two unrelated children, a boy and a girl, who were separately ruled abandoned by a Judge of the Childhood and Adolescence, with the favorable opinion of the PGN, and are being adopted by the same couple. Trusting that the judicial abandonment sentence of the children would protect them from any dangers at the PGN, the director of the orphanage went to the interview with one of the caregivers of the hogar and the notary. As soon as she got to the PGN, a group of the people brought by Fundacion Sobrevivientes followed them from the entrance to the basement. They were made to wait, while the mob, formed by men and women stood near by. After an hour of waiting, the notary asked Estela Torres, the PGN employee who is in charge, to go ahead with the interview. They were moved to one of the tables were the interviews take place and one of the women of Sobrevivientes came along too. She said that she was positive that the girl is her daughter. The CNA people and the DA delegate told the director of the hogar that her services were no longer needed and that the girl was being transferred to another hogar. The director of the hogar pleaded with them to let the girl stay at the hogar, promising that she would take the girl to the DNA lab and would not object to give her to the woman who claims her if the DNA showed a match. They refused, telling her over and over that she had done right in taking care of the girl for over a year, but now they were taking over. While all this was being discussed, the notary asked the woman how she lost her daughter, and her answer was that she was walking at the Bolivar Avenue, when her daughter was snatched by an unknown person When the director of the hogar asked her a little later the same question, the woman said that she was fooled into giving her. When she was asked when did that happen, she said that she did not remember, but insisted that she was her daughter because she had a tiny mole in a hand, which she happened to mention only after she saw it. An employee of the hogar went to the PGN with a DNA kit to try to get swabs of the alleged birth mother and of the little girl, but the PGN people did not allow it. Even if it was just to find out the truth, they should have allowed it, or even better, they should have the lab people there, to do it right away, since they have been saying that the birthmothers interviews are being done because three girls were stolen. I am sure that those interested in finalizing the adoption would willingly pay for a DNA test rather than have their child taken away from the people who care for such child.

The little girl was taken away by the PGN social worker who refused to let the director talk to her, to calm her down, because the girl was crying and did not even let her take her doll with her. When the PGN social worker saw the tears of the caregiver and the director of the hogar, said that they were giving the girl away into adoption, so she did not believe that they cared for those children or that they feel any love for them. As soon as the alleged birth mother saw the press people, burst into tears, and so did her entourage, in a well coordinated display of emotion, totally oriented towards the lenses of the news people who took them several pictures and eagerly filmed the waterworks.

The case will be brought to a Judge of Childhood and Adolescence who will start another abandonment process to determine if the mother is the birth mother and if she is a suitable option for the girl. Meanwhile, the frightened little girl will be who knows where, waiting for those heartless people to decide her life. If it turns out that the woman is not her mother, what will erase the harm done to the girl and to her adoptive parents? And if it turns out to be the mother, why is that she did not come forward to the court when publications of the picture and court in charge were made in two newspapers? It is understandable that the illiteracy and the poverty may prevent them from buying the newspapers, but the Police and the DA could very well have a collection of all those ads, to show them to those who denounce that their child is missing, and the DNA should be done in the less disruptive way.

The interviews of the birth mothers by the PGN/CNA are ILLEGAL, even if they are smooth and without any problems. To take the children away is ILLEGAL, because the law says that the children can be taken against the will of their parents and caregivers, only with judicial order and the PGN is doing it backwards. They snatch the children, and then go to a judge to validate what they did. The suspension of the adoption process, for whatever reason, is ILLEGAL, because the law very clearly says that the PGN has to give an opinion within three days, and there is no legal provision to justify the extension of that period.

The US Consul (same who passed list at the voting of the Adoptions Law in Congress last year) and Joint Council representatives Tom DiFilipo and Bruce Mossburg, visited the PGN last Tuesday, and it is our understanding that they advocated that the birthmother interviews were done in a respectful way, which misses totally the point that the interviews are illegal and that they should not take place at all. Doing the interviews politely and respectfully does not make them right. The CNA has absolutely nothing to do with grandfathered adoptions after the registration deadline of February 12 and in the remote possibility that they would have shown some interest in the situation of the children who need adoptions, that period also expired on February 12. Right now what they must do is to see how to become Hague Compliant, to be able to give families to all the children who need them and to set up state orphanages to provide the care that the private hoarse have been giving thus far and that no longer will give, once the children who are in them go home sometime this year. We really hope that after closing down a successful system that gave work to many people, provided homes and families to many children and kept older children off the streets, the Guatemalan government steps to the plate and opens nice orphanages, like the private ones that are closing now, and gives the children the food, care, medical attention and families that the lawyers and private institutions will no longer provide.

The press continues to malign the work of the adoption lawyers. Unsubstantiated accusations of coercing the mothers, of tricking them into giving away their children and of taking them by force are still published in one newspaper or another, depending on which was being paid by UNICEF to do their dirty job. A tool for that was the so called study done by an inexistent entity named ILPEC, that UNICEF presented at a big forum against adoptions in 2000, giving the credit for that so called study to such ghost entity as a way to distance UNICEF of what this entity very well knew that was a collection of lies, exaggerations and false accusations. The problem is even though everybody understands that the exception confirms the rule, when the subject is adoptions, it is the other way around. The exception makes the rule. A facilitator does something bad and instead of judging the facilitator, automatically adoptions are placed at the accused stool and people like Juan Carlos Llorca of Associated Press and many others, seize the opportunity to update one of their old articles full of venom about the corruption of adoptions in Guatemala.

What we have been seen and heard at the PGN this past weeks is very much what the media attributed to the lawyers: baby stealing, coercing of birth mothers, total disregard of the law and conning the mothers to make them change their minds, just to yank the children from their foster mothers and send them to the place of their choice, without a court order. It is a pity that neither the US consul nor the JCICS visitors used their influence to request to the PGN to put an end to those abuses that were limited just the day they were at the PGN, but continued as soon as they left. It was a very wasted opportunity to avoid the unnecessary anxiety and grief that this abuse of power is bringing to the waiting parents and to the interviewed mothers and as it was shown on Friday, to the directors of the hogars as well.

Because most Guatemalans would not adopt a child, much less an indigenous looking child, many find very difficult to understand why is that the Americans adopt them. A former PGN director, in her recommendation that the Hague Convention were ratified as soon as possible, wrote: The foreigners adopt children from Guatemala, not because they like them, but because it is easy to do it and we must prevent that. That summarizes the way the people in the government see the adoption of Guatemalan children by foreign citizens and since most of the Guatemalans do not set foot at the hotels where anyone could see that the children being adopted are treated with love by their visiting parents, we understand now that the harassment of the adoptive parents by the police was not only to obtain green papers with portraits of former American presidents, but as a successful way to keep the adoptive parents off the streets, and away from the public eye so they could not see that the children being adopted are loved beyond any physical feature by their adoptive parents.

UNICEF could not prevent the grandfather provision in the Adoptions Law of the in process cases, but it is doing its best to prevent those cases to be finalized. If anyone ever wonder who is paying for the salaries of the interviewers since neither the PGN nor the CNA are doing it, the answer is in the bottomless pockets of UNICEF. After giving to Oscar and Wendy Berger their farewell present for a job well done, regarding the passing of a draconian Adoptions Law, now they have to deal with the stubbornness of those who have been doing everything they can to finalize the adoptions that do not move forward, but seem to go backwards with the collaboration of different characters. Fundacion Sobrevivientes, whose sole purpose is to denounce the killing of women, suddenly turns against adoptions and gets three women who claim that their daughters were stolen and that they know that they are being adopted. Even though we feel sorry for anyone who suffers the loss of a child, to try to find the missing children of three women does not justify to steal as many children as possible every day, at the PGN. When the law does not mean anything to those who have the power and the employees of the PGN can take by force and with the help of the police, a child that is being legally adopted, for groundless reasons or clerical mistakes, the pain that the mothers who want their children to be adopted and the people who are adopting them is much more real than the pain of those women whose flimsy versions of the way they lost their children makes us seriously doubt of the authenticity of their pain and of their stories.

Last week, the reviewers of the PGN were pressured into taking back the already signed approvals by them and by Barrios, and review again the files, searching for anything that could be new previos. We were told that they refused to do so, but in view of the limited number of approved files being released, we are wondering if they caved in and did as they were told.

The order to bring the birthmothers, the children and the biological mothers (even in the case of abandoned children), to the PGN has no legal grounds. According to the Constitution, nobody has to obey an order that is not based on law. The risk of losing a child due to the dirty tricks of the interviewers is ever present. To bring a birthmother to the PGN and have a successful interview is not a guarantee of the file being released soon. The fact that only a few approved files were freed and that two of them belong to an agency that has been questioned and that is under investigation in the US, brings to mind the nagging suspicion that the adoption files have been kidnapped and that only those who pay the ransom are set free. In view of this hostage situation, a stronger plea for help must be filed by the affected US parents with their Congress and Senate members, to bring this matter to the attention of the Secretary of State, to use their almighty power to stop the delays and the trickery and let the adoptions be finalized according to the laws, not to the whims of each reviewer, interviewer or third level bureaucrat of the PGN.

What happened to adoptions?

By Manuel F. Ayau Cordon
(Prensa Libre, June 2, 2008)

An unpleasant misfortune imposed by law to the Guatemalan childhood was the success that UNICEF had (with its lobbying and huge contributions, that rumor has it that they were $900 thousand) to ensure the end of adoptions of abandoned children, success that it also had in other countries who heeded its ghostly stories, leaving thousands of boys and girls without a family and in a situation of wretched poverty, begging and prostitution, when they were not aborted, for lack of homes willing to adopt them. (I remember that the US Government suspended its aid to Unicef form indirectly promoting abortion).
There are many fooled by phrases like “They don’t want the children, because they are no longer a business”. It is a cruel cynicism to speak like that about those who use to give the services of receiving, supporting, sheltering, feeding, providing medicines, dental work, of doctors and education to abandoned children, recovering those expenses with voluntary contributions and with the collection of a fee for lending those services to the abandoned youth.
The term “trade of children” sounds as insidious as if it we criticize that the Press sells news for money or that the Unicef diplomats get money for their services. Regrettably, for reasons that come from very far away, since before Dickens, to earn money has a bad reputation, event though everybody does it, because there is nothing wrong with that and even churches request money ( "donations").
It is known of isolated cases of theft of children in Europe, in the United States and in other countries, where the remedy is not to punish thousands of children, but the few delinquents. Has anyone in Guatemala been punished? Do you know that the foreign adoptions are done mainly (95%) to the US and that its government requires two DNA maternity tests and previous authorization?
It is said that babies are abducted to extract organs, as if this does not require of sanitary facilities, qualified medical staff, compatibility testing and proof of origin and procedure by the recipient, a process difficult to achieve, especially in a clandestine way. If the government knows about this, why they do not apprehend the delinquents? Meanwhile, while more yellow and ghostly the tale is, the more it is liked by the morbid minds.
Now it turns out that only the Government can handle adoptions and, consequently, the private orphanages had to close and according to the Press, the adoptions have stopped, because the Government does not have neither the hogars nor the funds to care for those boys and girls. Taking care of them costs money that formerly was willingly paid, without being a burden to the public funds. Now the new bureaucracy resorts to give their care to “chosen" people who will have to be paid to cover up keeping expenses, etc. Now the people will have to support it with their taxes (Trade?, Business?, Bribes?).
The greatest damage, which obviously they do not care about, has been to deprive so many abandoned young people of a family, of a home to grow up and develop, of an opportunity to get an education, and of a promising future. This law constitutes a cruelty, and should be eliminated, even if that is not liked by the ambassadors of countries and institutions who "help" and that only because they give money they believe that they are entitled to interfere and impose their ideological judgments on what is not of their incumbency.

Who are the real baby snatchers?

More abuses are being reported to ADA by lawyers who took birth mothers to the CNA/PGN interviews. The offers of money, housing, health plans, etc. have moved some of the mothers to take back their children, but instead of giving the children back to their mothers, the children are being taken away to who knows where and when the deceived mothers expressed their intention to continue with the adoptions, since they were not getting the children back and the offers made did not materialize, the interviewers told them that it was too late to change their minds.

Siglo Veintiuno reported yesterday what Nineth Guevara, the director of the Section of Childhood and Adolescence of the PG, calls anomalies the mistakes found in several adoption files. Guevara says that the PGN will file criminal charges against 80 notaries. She is the same woman who took by force a baby girl against the will of her mother and grandparents last October. What the PGN is doing is not only reviewing the cases already approved by Barrios, which is totally illegal, but labeling the mistakes in the files that can be amended and that are cause of rejection for amendment (previos), as anomalies, and the notaries who preside those files, as delinquents. Since there are not legal grounds to prosecute the notaries, there is little chance that the PGN will actually file charges. The so called anomalies are actually typos, human errors and PGN requirements without legal grounds, results of an overzealous analysis of the files done by underpaid and jealous lawyers of the PGN, who are trying to justify their work by creating unnecessary obstacles. The least they have in mind is the best interest of the children. An example of that are the adoptions that were legally approved by the Family judges a year ago, and that were tangled in the appeal process filed by the PGN. After succeeding in getting back the files for its approval, after the court of appeals revoked the lower court approval, the PGN has had no other choice but to approve every one of them, stealing a whole year of the lives of those children, who were deprived during all that time of the love of their waiting families.

Associated Press, eager to attack adoptions as usual, is spreading the news that the Attorney General annulled fifteen adoptions for illegalities in the files. The truth is that those adoptions were actually approved by Barrios and there is no law that gives the new authorities the power to modify such approval. That is another display of shameful abuse of power of the PGN and of irresponsible journalism of Associated Press, who also collaborated in the closing of adoptions in Vietnam to US families.

The CNA should be setting up shelters for children who are being left abandoned in public places, instead of trying to take away the children already in process of adoption, Thus far, thirty two children have been found in garbage dumps, in the street and in vacant lots. Recently, a baby was found in a cardboard box just a few yards away from the PGN building. According to Nineth Guevara, of the PGN, those abandonments were done by the baby snatchers who dumped the children, afraid of being discovered. She has no explanation for the lack of complaints by the mothers of those children, who will have to be summoned during two months, according to her, through publication in two different newspapers of the pictures of the babies found, and if nobody claims them, the children will be ruled adoptable by the courts.

The announced suspension of adoptions during a month, may last for as long as the attorney general wants. The sign posted at the window of the PGN says that no adoption files will be released until further notice, not necessarily a month. In 2003, the PGN, acting as central authority and directed by Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios, the same lawyer who now directs the CNA, did not release any file during six months and it could have been more, because what they were planning then was to exhaust the financial reserves of the attorneys by tying up the cases for a long time, until they had to give up and surrender the children to the Central Authority, so Larios and her PGN accomplices could renegotiate the second half of the fee with those foreign parents who could afford them. Larios had no qualms in expressing her plans and to travel then to the US, expenses paid by adoptions agencies, to establish contacts with them in order to set up her monopoly of adoptions, just as she is doing it now.

ADA has been asked constantly if the children in process will go home. The answer is yes, but since the current government is showing as much respect for the rights of the birthmothers and adoptive parents and for the laws of the country, as the Nazis in Germany, we believe that the US government will have to intervene to restore the order in a situation that was created by them, when forced on Guatemala the passing of a law without the necessary preparation to implement it properly and by allowing the abuses that have been committed by the current authorities, while the US embassy claims that they cannot do anything, because it is an local matter, when they well know that an intercountry adoption is not a local matter and that they have to step up to the plate and fix the problems they created.

THE ILLEGALITIES CONTINUE AT THE PGN

The situation with the PGN and the CNA is getting worse every day. The interviews to the birth mothers have no legal grounds, but their misinterpretation of article 57 of the Adoption Law gives them the excuse to drag the birth mothers to the PGN for interviews where they have to confirm their willingness to the adoption, even though the same article says that the verification of the situation of the children SUBJECTED TO SUCH LAW, which is very different of the cases being grandfathered, should be done by them WITHIN THIRTY DAYS of the law becoming effective, that is to say, that the time to do it was the same period given to the notaries to register the in process adoptions in order to be grandfathered, which ended on February 12 of this year. So even if it was their duty to verify the situation of the children, doing it NOW is illegal, because the time to do it is long expired.

We know of a case where the birthmother expressed at her interview, in very clear terms that she wanted the adoption to be finalized, but the PGN took her child and sent him to a hogar, no explanations given. In other case, the birthmother expressed her desire to keep her children and they were given to her, right there. Even though we are not advocating for adoptions being finalized against the will of the birth mother, we cannot support a system of intimidating the birth mothers to such extent as to make them claim back the children that they voluntarily relinquished many months before. Today six children were taken by the CNA for no legal reasons.

The website of the CNA is an admission of guilt, and at the same time, a display of how untruthful they can be, when we all know that their intentions never were to protect the children but to try to steal the work they did not do. The last paragraph is self explanatory: no lawyers or notaries are needed to do an adoption with them, but they do not disclose the little detail that the Adoptions Law allows the CNA to charge foreign adoptive parents for their adoptions. Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios has been quoted in the newspapers saying that currently the lawyers charge the foreign parents up to sixty five thousand dollars for each adoption, which she very well knows that it is not true.

Two of the directors of the CNN traveled on Sunday to Washington, in a trip of six days, paid by the US embassy, according to a note published today by Siglo Veintiuno, page 6. In view of the role that the CNA has taken with the grandfathered cases, it looks more as a reward to them from the US DOS than an attempt to stop the abuses to the birth mothers by the CNA. One of the directors, Norma Elizabeth Robles Avila is the sister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios is the wife of the chief of staff of President Colom. Their trip includes visits with private adoption agencies, who are looking to establish a working relationship with the CNA.

If the real intention of the birthmother interviews were to identify the girls that supposedly were stolen to three women, it is unforgivable that the CNA/PGN are delaying the release of the adoptions of boys and of older girls. It more and more looks as if the CNA is trying to derail the notarial adoptions for a purpose and the PGN and the US DOS are their accomplices. The adoptive parents entered into those adoptions in good faith and the birthmothers and legal guardians of the children gave their consent to them. The formalities of the adoption process have fulfilled and all the PGN can do is to give its approval and release the files. The notaries have their hands tied, because if the amparo that is ready to be filed is dismissed, that will strengthen the position of the CAN/PGN and the US embassy will continue with its hands off approach of the situation. For that reason, the birthmothers and the children have been taken to the PGN by the notaries, to be verbally abused by the people interviewing them, who have the audacity to offer the birthmothers a monthly stipend if they take the child back. The notaries have to be at the PGN but are not allowed to witness the interview. Even strong women have left humiliated and in tears after they were interviewed.

The respect of the law no longer exists. The CNA and the PGN are making up their own rules in the so-called best interest of the child, hurting as many children, birth mothers and adoptive parents as possible. You must report this to your Congressmen and Senators, because if the US DOS is not supporting the abuses of the CNA/PGN, by consenting to them and paying trips to the perpetrators are as guilty as them.

INTERVIEWS TO THE BIRTHMOTHERS - THE FIRST DAY

This morning, the PGN was a circus. With news people crawling the place everywhere and lawyers bringing birthmothers and children, lots of policemen, bodyguards and attendants to guide the visitors to the places where the interrogatories were going to be taken.

A big room at the PGN building was furnished to conduct several interviews at once. The lawyers demanded to be allowed at the interviews and to exclude the media from them. Despite the fact that the PGN invited the media to the show, they had to tell them to leave, as they were filming the birthmothers and their children. The interviews were conducted by people of the National Council of Adoptions, who definitely have nothing to do there, since the registered cases are not under the scope of the CNA.

In most cases the questions were just a few and what it took longer was that the clerks who were typing in the computers the written acts of the interview, did not know how to do it and had to repeat them several times. Twenty five birthmothers were interviewed today and ALL of them confirmed their willingness to the adoption. The CNA people were very frustrated. They commented that it was a waste of time, because the mothers should be interviewed in closed quarters, and by the psychologist. We can easily imagine what would follow next.

In the afternoon, attorney Jorge Armando Carrillo and I participated in a radio program about the suspension of adoptions. The PGN was invited and accepted, but did not send anyone. There was also a young woman of the Fundacion Sobrevivientes, who brought a woman who claims that her child was stolen by a woman who went to her house while she was at work, and asked the grandmother of the child to allow her to take the child to the mother of the child because she wanted to show her to a friend. The grandmother did not think twice in giving the child to a total stranger and since September las year, they have not seen the child. When I asked her what made her think that her daughter was placed for adoption, se said that the woman who took her child works on adoptions. Then I asked her if she had filed a complaint and when she said yes, I asked her why is that she was trying to stop all adoptions, instead of making the District Attorney and the police to do their job and find the child. She had no answer for that. The program went really well, and its conductor confirmed that the PGN invited the media to the birthmothers interviews.

The PGN continues to accept new adoption files, but refuses to give them back, even when they were duly approved by Barrios. The abuse of power of the PGN officers is incredible. Even if the interviews held today were not as awful as we expected, the fact is that the people of the CAN has nothing to do with adoptions being done according to the old laws and the PGN is consenting to the violation of the law and even giving the CNA a place in its building to do it.

Neither the CNA nor the PGN have the last word. There are legal measures that will be taken. An amparo is being prepared to demand that the PGN reassumes its legal obligation to review the files and give them back to the notaries. We hope that the courts will see the danger that any new administration re writes the laws of the country or gives in to the pressure of anybody who chooses to oppose adoptions.

The accusation against the sister of Gudy Rivera, the president of the committee for the child and the family of Congress had a hogar that according to the director of the CAN, Elizabeth de Larios, was even registered at the CNA. The CNA has no right to go to the place were the children are kept, because the adoptions that are registered, are none of their business and it would be better that the people at the CNA would do their real work and leave alone former adoptions. The lack of respect for the privacy p the children is disgusting. In today’s paper was the copy of the registration form of one of the children found at the hogar of Ms. Rivera. Clearly can be read the names of mother and child, which is very upsetting.

Keep calling your congressmen and senators. This could become a long time situation unless we do what we can to restore the order. The PGN and the CNA are breaking the laws and abusing their power and we have to stop that, because the worst enemy of an abandoned child is the time. The children being adopted should not be involved in the shows of the current administration to malign Gordillo. There are enough reasons to fire him, and adoptions should not be used as a mean to justify his destitution, because it involves human lives.

THE ILLEGAL REQUESTS OF THE PGN

The change of authorities at the PGN, instead of being a breath of fresh air, is more of the same but worse. Displaying a total disregard for the welfare of the children, the birth mothers and the adoptive parents, the new Attorney General, Baudilio Portillo Merlos, has been doing his best to stop adoptions and to create uncertainty with his ill advised comments about the legality of theadoption processes at the PGN.

Portillo Merlos said that they will interview the birth mothers of the cases that were already approved by Barrios. This is beyond his legal power. The arguments to support that measure are: that some of the notarial acts in some sdoption processes lack the signature of the lawyer who represents the adoptive parents and that some of the photocopies are not clear. How is the interview to birth mothers going to fix that is not explained by Portillo Merlos.

Yesterday we learned that the birthmother interviews will be held in the presence of the psychologist of the PGN, the same who kept a young birth mother for two hours, to convince her to claim her baby back, despite the clear opposition of the parents of the girl and the will of the girl, who did not sign the affidavit prepared by the PGN, and it was until they kidnapped the baby and promised the mother that if she came to the PGN she would get the baby back, that she signed it. After she did, the PGN people took mother and daughter and sent them to the Casa Alianza hogar for teen mothers, where they have been until now, unable to communicate with their family.

The interviews will also be witnessed by the lawyers of the District Attorney’s office, some other from the Human Rights Office, the same who has been claiming all the time that all adoptions are illegal and who has filed amparos to try to stop adopted children from leaving the country. The press will also be present at this interview, that is looking more like the Inquisition, than that an effort to know if everything was all right with the adoption.

The birth interviews by the PGN are illegal as they have not legal grounds and constitute an abuse of power. This week an amparo will be filed to try to get a court order to stop the PGN form suspending the approval of cases and to release the already approved cases. We will do our best to make the court to see that the PGN is abusing their power, the illegality of their acts, the harm done to the people involved in an adoption process.

The diligent lawyers of the PGN have been warning the Social Workers of the family court not to release the files to the notaries because they will come to review them. They also have been at the Civil Registries telling them that the final deeds of adoptions should not be recorded. All this is also illegal, but the PGN has a power over the other bureaucrats that has no explanation, but it is very strong.

An order that is not based on law should not be obeyed, says the Guatemalan Constitution and since the order to present the birth mothers to the PGN is not based on law, should not be obeyed. Nobody should be tried for wanting to give to her child a better life, and much less by a made up court whose only purpose is to prove that the mothers are not smart enough and did not know what they were doing when they gave up their children. The CNA summoned a birth mother of two sisters because the girls were so cute, and did not let the woman go until she admitted to take the girls back. Instead of having a loving family with means to give the girls what hey need, they will go back to a mother who cannot support them, and who works in the oldest profession, and who would not give them a good life. But for the CNA director, it was a triumph, to have rescued two girls from adoption.

Two days ago, Enrique Urizar, the ADA president, Dina Castro, former president and Olga Ogaldez, current president of the Institute of Family Law met with the US ambassador and the consul, to discuss the problem of the suspension of the adoptions by the PGN. The diplomat expressed his concern but stated in very clear terms that they cannot interfere, because it is an internal matter and they are bound to respect that. The bag of tricks that they used last year to get the Adoptions Law passed is a distant memory for the US diplomats. They also said that it will be long time until the US will do adoptions with Guatemala, because they are new at being Hague and Guatemala does not have a system in place that would allow it.

The adoptive parents have rights. Even if the adoption is not finalized, the birth mothers have given their consent to the adoptions and their saliva to prove that they are the mothers of the children being adopted. The fact that some children have been abducted, does not have the power to halt the adoptions in process. The presumption of innocence also applies here, and until somebody proves that a child being adopted was not relinquished by the mother of the child, the adoption cannot be stopped. There are more than two thousand children waiting and three girls missing. We are sure that there should be a less harming way to find if any of those girls is among the girls and boys being adopted, if only the real purpose where that, but it is looking more and more as an orchestrated way to derail the system and stop the children from going home. We msut fifth that.

This is the moment to call your representatives in the US and demand that the US diplomats do everything in their power to see that the adoptions in process are finalized in a timely matter without further and illegal requirements.

ADA is poised to fight this illegality and to win, because regardless of what the new authorities of the PGN say and the US DOS wants, those children have families who are adopting them, who love them and they belong with them, not being held I in custody as evidence of a crime that never was committed.