Who is really losing out

Why must we keep repeating misinformation? Why? Over the last several months Guatemala adoptions have been in the news. Most of the reporting has been poor at best and exploitive at worst.

The AP and other news organizations have reported that under the current notorial system, the notories (lawyers) are paid $30,000. That is insane. First let me explain that there is definitely an international fee...what it includes: lawyer to represent you, lawyer to represent the child, all family court fees, PGN (Guatemalan court system) fees, foster care, formula, clothes, doctors’ appointments, all documentation fees, translation fees, transportation for doctor's appointments, etc. The international fee is a flat fee regardless of how long your process takes...5 months or 1 year, it's the same. Formula, it's what we have here except there is no generic version so it's $20 per can. The lawyers are legally responsible for the children until they are adopted. They find them foster care. In Jay's case, he was in foster care, six weeks prior to my referral so that would mean the lawyer was covering the all his expenses up to that point. Let's also remember there is no insurance there so it's not like my co-pay covered his vaccines, etc. He also had a lot of additional testing, i.e. HIV, Hepatitis screenings, etc. Money is always a sensitive topic to be sure, but I think the fees I paid were more than fair. I paid for someone to take excellent care of my son. I paid for someone to see my case through the process. I paid for my documents to be translated. I paid for many services in order to bring my son home and the media seems to lose sight of that. Let’s be clear $30K does NOT go to the lawyers in Guatemala. The international is no where near $30K.

A law was voted on yesterday in a special session of Guatemalan congress. There is a sigh of relief for the most part from the families that are in the middle of their adoptions. The law is all in the name of stopping corruption and becoming Hague Compliant. I am thrilled for them, but petrified for the children who hadn't received a referral or those whose mother is starring poverty in the face and now may not have adoption as a choice. I am scared because Guatemala has no social service mechanism to handle or care for these children. The prospect of children going to an orphanage is horribly sad, but there are no state orphanages so that really isn’t an option. Remove the lawyers in favor of a central authority and in effect, you are removing the foster system as well. If they push out the private orphanages and there is no foster system where exactly will these children go?

The articles I have read how “easy” it is to adopt from Guatemala that last year alone over 4,000 children were adopted by Americans. They speak of how high that number is. I want to yell and scream at them. Do you know how many years of adoptions at that rate it would take to get to the current number of Guatemalans who have been backed into a corner to immigrate to the US illegally? Do you realize that there is a horrific trend of mothers leaving their children behind to ride the Train of Death through Mexico in hopes of making to the US so they can send money for food, clothes and school back to their children? If you haven’t read Enrique’s Journey, go get it, read it. 48,000 unaccompanied minors are making the trip each year in an attempt to find their mothers here in the US.

This new law has the potential to stop adoptions altogether from Guatemala. Most likely the best case scenario is it is going to greatly reduce them. It really is not about adoption, it’s about what is going to happen in a country that is so impoverish and has no structure to handle it. The families that were considering Guatemala as an option for adoption can choose another country. The children and their birthmothers in Guatemala won’t have that choice. Please don’t lose sight of them and that is the real tragedy being missed in the media and in the passage of this new law.