Adoption From Guatemala - The State Department Says "DON'T"

In March 2007, the U.S. State Department issued a statement advising U.S. perspective adoptive parents not to adopt from Guatemala, citing that Guatemala's adoption process has "serious problems" which makes it difficult to assure that children, adoptive mothers and adoptive parents are protected.

The State Department listed its main concerns with the Guatemalan adoption process as being:

• Conflicts of Interest - We are concerned that Guatemalan notaries may determine a child's eligibility for adoption, authorize the adoption deed, and register the adoption at the Civil Registrar. In the same case, the notary or his/her staff may also directly interact with birth mothers, solicit consents for an adoption, and handle the referral of the child to prospective adoptive parents. The Department of State does not believe that the notaries, given these multiple roles, can truly act objectively and in the best interests of the various parties.
  



• Lack of Government Oversight - Despite these critical roles in the adoption process, the notaries are largely unregulated. Public oversight is minimal. Particularly in cases in which prospective adoptive parents are told that the birth mother relinquished her rights to her child voluntarily, the U.S. Government is concerned that social services to birth mothers are extremely limited and that their consents may have been induced by money or threats. Monetary incentives and high fees drive completion of the adoption more than protecting the children, the birth parents, and the prospective adoptive parents. The Department is aware of a growing number of cases of adopting parents who have told us that they are being extorted for very large amounts of money by their local representatives in order to complete an adoption.



• Unregulated Foster Care - Like the notaries, Guatemalan foster care providers are not regulated or checked by the Guatemalan government for compliance with any standards. Many Guatemalan foster families have demonstrated their love and concern for the children in their care, and American adoptive parents have expressed gratitude for how the foster families cared for the children while the adoptions were in process. Unfortunately, however, the Department of State is also aware of instances of grossly inadequate care for young children in foster home situations.; There are cases in which American adoptive families who have completed a Guatemalan adoption later learned that the foster care provider or others in the household had physically or sexually abused the children.



• Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption - Guatemala has been a party to the Hague Convention since March 2003, but it has never enacted Hague-consistent legislation or instituted Hague-consistent practices that would provide children the protections that are now lacking. Guatemala has not established the required central authority to oversee intercountry adoption processing under the Convention and has not yet taken numerous other steps the Convention requires. The U.S. Department of State, the Hague Permanent Bureau (which oversees the Convention) and other countries have consistently expressed concern about these and other problems with Guatemalan adoptions. In fact, many Hague Convention countries have stopped adoptions from Guatemala.

Increased Demand + Stricter Rules = Long Waits for Most International Adoptions

The wait time for international adoptions made by U.S. parents has gone up drastically over the last several years. This is partially due to:

1. Increased demand for international adoption by U.S. parents;



2. Stricter rules being imposed by the countries from which adoptions originate, arsing both from a desire to protect children being adopted and to a growing "pro-national" (or "anti-international") adoption stance from within many countries;



3. In some cases, more domestic adoptions are taking place within countries that used to send many of their children to the U.S. as adoptees. This trend is due to stronger national economies and/or local government emphasizing the importance of children being adopted nationally;



4. The U.S. shutting down adoption from various countries due to political unrest or unethical behavior by agencies and orphanages within the countries.

U.S. demand to adopt foreign children has certainly increased over the last few decades. For example, the US issued 7093 visas to children adopted from foreign countries in 1990. That number grew to 22,884 in 2004. Since 2004, the numbers have dwindled somewhat, going down to 22,728 in 2005 and to 20,679 in 2006.

Since 2001, mainland China has been the most popular country for adoptions from the U.S. with numbers of adoptions rising steadily from 4,681 in 2001 to 7,906 in 2005. It remained the most popular in 2006, but adoption of Chinese babies decreased by almost 1,500 in that year to 6,493. This decrease is due to a variety of factors:

• New, stricter guidelines instituted by the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs CCAA);



• Adoptive U.S. parents, not wishing to wait more than two years to adopt a Chinese baby, have begun adopting from other countries such as Vietnam, Guatemala and Ethiopia;



• People in China are beginning to adopt domestically due to the country's strengthening economy and changing views on domestic adoption, thereby leaving less children available for international adoption.
  

With the increased popularity of international adoption from the U.S., several countries are now receiving more applications than they can comfortably handle. Vietnam has requested that American agencies decrease the amount of applications sent its way so that its adoption officials can catch up. The current wait time for international adoptions in Vietnam is estimated to be almost as long as in China, especially for parents hoping to adopt little girls. This is also true of adoptions from Taiwan.

In fact, some adoption agencies in the U.S. will no longer allow perspective adoptive parents (PAPs) to indicate their preference for the sex of the child they hope to adopt, or indeed to even specify the child's approximate age. This is especially true in China, where at least 90% of the children waiting for adoption are girls. This high ratio is due to China's one-child-only policy which allows Chinese couples to have only one child. Given China's overwhelming preference for boys, the vast majority of girls end up in adoption agencies or abandoned. (To read an article on why girls are abandoned in China, click here).

In all other countries where adoption is allowed, there are far more boys in orphanages than girls. In Korea, for example, approximately 80% of the children awaiting international adoption are boys. Although Korea allows Korean PAPs to specify their preference for girls or boys, PAPs in the U.S. can not specify unless they themselves are of Korean descent or they are adopting special needs children or older children.

In general, the more popular the country is for international adoption, the less choice that a PAP will have in selecting sex, age and ethnicity.

Increased demand and a growing trend toward "pro-national adoption" of babies, is translating into countries making stricter rules to limit the amount of foreign PAPs who can adopt their children. For example, in 2007 China implemented stricter rules intended to decrease demand for international adoption of its children by 25-30%. In addition to restrictions on U.S. PAPs' age, income, health and education, the new rules limit PAPs' body mass index to 40, ruling out the obese.

Homosexuals are not allowed to adopt internationally. Although many foreign countries do allow single females to adopt, they do not allow single males to do so.