Intercountry Adoption Reform Based on the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption: An Update on Guatemala in 2008
Print This Post EMail This Post November 29th, 2008
Karen Smith Rotabi, Richmond, Virginia (USA) and Kelley Bunkers, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
Until recently, Guatemala was on a per capita basis the largest source of US-adopted children in the world. At its peak, it was estimated that as many as 17 young Guatemalan children, many of them infants, departed Guatemala daily as an intercountry adoptees. The phenomenon was so common that the departure airline flights were called the “baby flight” by adoption agencies and families (Rotabi, 2007a). This dynamic underscores the fact that 98% of all adoptions were carried out internationally rather than domestic adoption placements with Guatemalan families (Latin American Institute for Education and Communication [ILPEC], 2000; UN, 2000). Dating back to the year 2000, reportedly 27,805 Guatemalan children were adopted by United States citizens (United States Department of State [USDOS], n.d.). US data are particularly relevant because a number of other industrialized nations, including Canada, enforced a moratorium on Guatemala as a sending nation due to adoption irregularities, and as a result, the vast majority of children were sent to the US during this time period (Rotabi, Morris & Weil, in press).
This Millenium adoption surge took place in the face of allegations and evidence of serious human rights abuses, including warnings from the US government and direct language such as “child trafficking” (United States Government Accountability Office [US GAO], 2005). While it is not certain just how many cases were fraudulent, illegal birth mother payments are believed to have become routine practice in recent years and this form of child sales was only one unscrupulous tactic of child traffickers.