Guatemala

Case Eight El Salvadoran girls were rescued in a raid on a nightclub in Guatemala City. They had been trafficked under false pretenses and sexually exploited. Three pimps were arrested. ("Capture Accused of Corrupting Children," Prensa Libre, 24 February 1998)

Mario Aguilar, owner of the Palace brothel in Guatemala City, was to pay 150 quetzales (US$ 25) for each girl delivered to him by a trafficker. ("Guatemalan Child Prostitute Trafficker Recieves 2-Plus Year Prison Sentence," El Heraldo, 3 December 1997)

A yearlong legal battle has been won by a Guatemalan woman whose baby was a victim of illegal trafficking in infants. The mother, named Elivia, was tricked into signing all of the documents necessary, under lax Guatemalan laws, for a private adoption. In order to control her during her pregnancy, the lawyer handling the illegal adoption held back Elivia’s furniture and belongings and gave her 100 Quetzales ($15) a week for expenses. Elivia was even taken, against her will, to a house in San Pedro Epocapa, Chimaltenango. After the birth Elivia was prevented from seeing her baby by nurses, who had been informed that Pablo had been adopted. It was then that she realized she had been fooled and began to fight to get her baby back. Guatemalan law permits a mother to stop the process at any time during a private adoption, but very often the lawyers involved do not inform the mothers, many of whom are illiterate, of this. ("Casa Alianza wins its first case against illegal adoptions," Press Release Casa Alianza, 19 August 1998)

Trafficking of Babies

Guatemala lacks appropriate national legislation in order to regulate international adoptions, as a result an open exportation of babies has been developed. According to the Procurator General of the Nation more than 2,000 babies are adopted abroad every year, the majority go to the United States and Canada. The legal requirements necessary to privately adopt a Guatemalan baby are minimal - you need a certificate from a lawyer and a short report from a social worker - there is practically no state control over the origin or the destiny of the baby. This is in contrast to national adoptions where, at least, a person needs a decision from a judge in order to proceed.

The lawyers involved in private adoptions can earn between US$ 12,000 and US$ 15,000 dollars for completing the necessary paper work, and in some cases the couples pay as much as $60,000 for a baby. Illegal practices develop including the kidnapping of babies, from Mexico and El Salvador, payments to mothers who rent their wombs and the buying of babies from very poor mothers. ("Casa Alianza wins its first case against illegal adoptions," Press Release Casa Alianza, 19 August 1998)

Women in brothels are sometimes the source for babies for adoption trafficking. More than 900 Guatemalan babies were put up for international adoption in 1996, up more than 30 percent from 1995. About half of the adopted children go to families in the United States, though Canada and European nations also adopt many Guatemalan babies. (Carmela Curup head of the Guatemalan Solicitor General’s Children’s Protection Office, Edward Hegstrom, "Black market in adoptions described in Guatemala," Boston Globe, 14 September 1997)

The majority of the street girls attended by Casa Alianza in their programs in Guatemala are victims of prostitution. ("The Situation of Street Children in Latin America," Bruce Harris, Executive Director, Latin American Programmes, Casa Alianza/Covenant House Latin America, 9 October 1997)

In a September 1997 investigation undertaken by the Guatemala Solicitor General's Office and the Legal Aid Office of Casa Alianza, found evidence of Mexican babies being stolen in Chiapas, moved across the border, into Guatemala, where they were illegally given birth certificates and sent for international adoptions. Some 60 percent of the adoptions from Guatemala go to the US. The balance of the babies go principally to Europe and Israel and a few to Australia (Padraig O’Morain, Social Affairs Correspondent," "Child trafficking and DNA testing," Irish Times, August 11,1998)