WASHINGTON — A year after Guatemala’s emergence as the second-largest foreign source of babies for adoption to the United States, a new push by the Guatemalan government to wrest control of the process from private agencies has stirred an emotional backlash from thousands of prospective adoptive parents in the United States.
John and Renee Eubanks of Columbia, Md., who adopted a baby girl from Guatemala in the spring, recently made the painful decision to suspend their search for a second child because they fear the government’s approach will end up canceling adoptions midway through the process.
But the adoption agency the Eubankses used keeps e-mailing them photos of babies just in case, and the boys’ tiny faces haunt Renee.
“You look at each one and think: ‘If we don’t commit to him, what’s going to happen to him? Is he ever going to get a family? Is he going to end up begging on the street?’ ” she said at her kitchen table while her 21- month-old daughter, Mikayla, drank milk from a sippy cup. “It’s heart-wrenching.”
“Baby-producing nation”
Almost 2,000 miles away, Guatemala’s solicitor general, Mario Gordillo, is haunted by a different image: Like many critics of the current setup, he worries that thousands of desperately poor Guatemalan women are being induced to conceive children for adoption by private brokers offering as much as $3,000 a baby.
“Guatemala has converted into a baby-producing nation,” Gordillo said at his office in Guatemala City. “Our children come into this world to be products for sale. It’s as if they were a car. What model is it? And who wants to buy it?”
The debate raging in Guatemala echoes previous controversies that have led to the suspension of adoptions from Romania to Cambodia. But the stakes are far higher this time because of the sheer number of children involved.
Over the past 15 years, the number of foreign children adopted by Americans each year has nearly tripled, totaling more than 20,000 in 2006. About one in five comes from Guatemala, which released 4,135 children for international adoption last year. That’s almost as many as are adopted from the top nation, China, which has more than 100 times the population.
Guatemala’s severe poverty is a driving force behind the trend. The government’s hands-off approach to adoptions has also played a role in fueling Guatemala’s adoption industry.
Although the solicitor general’s office must sign off on all international adoptions, Guatemala has no government agency charged with tracking children whose mothers wish to give them up — let alone caring for such children or matching them with adoptive parents overseas.
Instead, the void has been filled by a network of private notaries and attorneys.
The potential for windfall profits, combined with the lack of oversight and the vast pool of impoverished women, has created massive opportunities for abuse, critics say.
For instance, many lawyers contract with jaladores, who fan across the countryside seeking women willing to relinquish their children. There is widespread suspicion that jaladores may pay, pressure or bamboozle women who would not otherwise choose to put up a child for adoption.
Faced with growing outrage over the issue among the public, the Guatemalan government has moved to increase its supervision of international adoptions.
In August, authorities launched a rare investigation of an agency, raiding a foster home for multiple babies and detaining several lawyers.
Treaty shifts process
Most far-reaching in its implications was a vote by Guatemala’s Congress in May to accede to an international treaty on standards for international adoptions that requires governments to appoint a central authority to manage the process.
The United States is on track to accede to the treaty by spring, at which point U.S. authorities will be unable to accept adoptions from Guatemala unless the system there is also up to treaty standards.
Guatemala’s lawmakers set off alarms by setting the date for Guatemala’s accession for Jan. 1 — well before the United States will be in compliance. This has raised questions about whether an estimated 5,000 adoptions currently in process will be allowed to proceed if they are not completed by the end of this year.
“I can’t even think about that possibility,” said a tearful Terry Lewis, 47, of Gaithersburg, Md., who is in the final stages of adopting a 14-month-old boy whom she and her husband have already named Shepherd. The couple have visited the child three times, bringing along their 2-year-old son, Zachary, whom they adopted from Guatemala a year ago. “Every time we leave Sheppie, it’s like we’re left with this big hole. I don’t know how else to put it except that he’s my kid.”
