ADA News (English)

Tomorrow, May 2nd, the Guatemalan Congress will meet to discuss different proposals. There are two proposals in their agenda that affect adoptions. The first is another attempt to approve the Hague Convention for Inter Country Adoptions, despite the ruling of the Constitutional Court that stated that the president of Guatemala cannot commit the country to the obligations of an international treaty through accession. The number of the proposal is 3339. To become effective, it would need another two readings. After that, the President would have to do the unprecedented act of depositing again an accession instrument with the Secretary of Hague Conference, and three months later, the Convention would become effective in Guatemala. The link is http://www.congreso.gob.gt/gt/ver_agendadia.asp?id=558

If Congress disregards the ruling of the Constitutional Court and approves the Hague Convention, they would be seriously jeopardizing the State of Law in Guatemala. Whether they like it or not, the President of Guatemala cannot commit the country by an international treaty through accession, and if the Congress approves again the Hague Convention, it will be showing that the influence of UNICEF outweighs our Constitution and everything it stands for. The precedent is very dangerous.

We believe that the key to improve the Guatemalan adoption legal system is not to impose a treaty that not only Guatemala cannot legally become a party to, but that has proven to produce the exact opposite effect of what it should. Instead of protecting the children and their families in an adoption process, it makes adoption something so difficult that they are reduced to a few, while the number of aborted, mistreated , abandoned and abused children increase tremendously.

Another proposal that is also on the agenda for May 2nd. is the third reading of the Ortega Law, number 3217. This proposal is being pushed by UNICEF and the Executive branch, because to change the Guatemalan legal system of adoption, is one of the strings attached to the $28,000,000.00 (Q176,000.000.00) donation that UNICEF offered to the Guatemalan Secretary of Social Welfare. Such amount can be very useful for a president in the last year of his term.

Instead of worrying because the children are being adopted by loving families, the Guatemalan president and his wife should worry and do something about the one million children in Guatemala who have to work, to support themselves and to help their families, and about the thirty thousand children who die every year of curable diseases before their fifth birthday for lack of medical care, and be worried that the illiteracy rate is of 32%, and that half of the population is malnourished and lives in poverty.

The European Parliament, the Organization of American States and every “human rights” organization, see adoptions as “one of the problems that Guatemala has”. One has to wonder what lies beneath the constant attack against adoptions and why is that instead of improving the conditions of life of the poor people in Guatemala, those “humanitarian organizations” devote their best efforts to try to eliminate what now represents the only way out for many children.

There is another proposal in Congress, the proposal number 3635, that even though is far from being perfect, it is much better than the Ortega Law. It is Hague compliant and does not make adoptions impossible as the Ortega Law does, but maybe that is what UNICEF does not want: that it works.

To close down adoptions in Guatemala would be a death sentence for thousands of children. We cannot let that happen. We are prepared to comply with a law that follows the guidelines established by the Hague Convention, and at the same time, we are prepared to file all legal actions against the Ortega Law in the remote case that it becomes effective.

We will supply updated information about the developments in Congress. Before you panic, remember that the changes will not produce effects immediately and that before they do, we will use all the legal resources to prevent them from doing so. We are not going to let the families and the children get caught up in another Hague Convention fiasco, as it happened in 2003. Rest assured that all our efforts will be focused on keeping adoptions open, and that we are willing to do what it takes to restore the order if an unconstitutional law upsets it.