MEXICO CITY — Guatemala’s congress overwhelmingly approved stricter adoption regulations Tuesday following months of hotly debated allegations that attorneys stole babies or paid mothers to give birth, then handed over their children for adoption.
More than 3,700 pending adoptions — mostly involving U.S. couples — were exempted from the new rules, easing widespread fears among prospective parents who had bonded with babies while waiting months for their adoptions to be approved.
Adoptions in Guatemala have long been handled by a network of private notaries and attorneys. But the measure approved Tuesday gives full control of the adoption process to the Guatemalan government and will reduce the price of adoptions from an average of $30,000 per child to between $500 and $750, Guatemalan Congressman Francisco Rolando Morales said in a phone interview from Guatemala City.
“The business of selling babies in Guatemala is completely coming to an end,” said Morales, the most vocal supporter of a bill proposing the new regulations.
Guatemala has one of the world’s highest adoption rates and sends more children to the United States — more than 4,100 last year alone — than any country except China. But the Guatemalan adoption industry came under scrutiny in the past year after a series of media reports about allegations of trafficking in infants.
