Ethica is a non-profit education, assistance and advocacy group, which seeks to be an impartial voice for ethical adoption practices worldwide. In order to maintain our impartiality, Ethica does not accept monetary donations from agencies or other child placing entities, nor are any of our managing Board of Directors currently affiliated with adoption agencies. Ethica strives to develop organizational policy and recommendations based solely on the basic ethical principles that underscore best practices in adoption and speak to the best interest of children. Ethica believes that all children deserve permanent loving homes, preferably within their family of birth. When remaining with their birth families is not possible, and children cannot be adopted by families within their country of birth, intercountry adoption may be in the child's best interest.
Ethica supports the ideals embodied in the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. It is imperative that countries take measures to ensure that decisions about a child's future are made in their best interests and that adoptions take place in an environment that provides adequate safeguards to the children, and their families. It is equally vital that adoption professionals, both in the United States and abroad, continue to evaluate current adoption processes and identify areas where protections to children can improve.
On November 26, 2002 Guatemala ratified the Hague Convention, and the Convention is due to enter into force in Guatemala on March 1, 2003. In recent years, much attention has been focused on problems within the intercountry adoption process in Guatemala, and Ethica commends the Guatemalan government for the interest it has shown in improving its process. The process of bringing a country's adoption program into compliance with the Hague Convention can be quite daunting, as witnessed by the years-long implementation process undertaken by the United States. Crafting a system which simultaneously balances the pressing needs of children and creates a central adoption authority that conforms to international standards is difficult at best. It is, therefore, imperative that consideration be given to allowing adoptions to continue in the interim, provided that additional protections can be added to strengthen the current process.
There seem to be two divergent points of view regarding the current situation in Guatemala. In 2000, UNICEF commissioned the Latin American Institute for Education and Communication (ILPEC) to conduct a study of Adoption and the Rights of the Child in Guatemala. The report was reportedly designed to "help provide support for the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala by identifying those elements most essential to the formulation of a law on adoption." This report coupled with a report by the UNICEF Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Ms. Ofelia Calcetas-Santos, has been the source of many of the concerns regarding Guatemalan adoptions. In the conclusion of the ILPEC report, it states, "Until such time that an adoption law becomes a reality, it is recommended that all direct and private adoptions be suspended so as to favor the large number of institutionalized children."
On the opposite end of the spectrum are many attorneys and agencies that currently work within Guatemala to place children through direct and private adoptions. These entities emphatically disagree with much of the information in the ILPEC and UNICEF reports, and protest, quite convincingly, that the private adoption system provides much needed services to the children of Guatemala and that they undertake many of the social service functions that the State fails to provide. They also express understandable concern over the difficulties in realistically implementing a central adoption system within a country which lacks the infrastructure and resources needed to function adequately. It is also noted that DNA testing, which is required by the US Government, serves to ensure that one of the most serious allegations, that children are being kidnapped for adoption, is no longer a concern. Most adoption service providers involved in Guatemala favor a continuation of private and direct adoptions, and assert that the current system already contains protective mechanisms.