IMPORTANT NEWS

News: Guatemala: Protocol  of Good Practices
March  2007
Guatemala City

The  Vice President  of Guatemala has announced that Guatemala will adopt a Manual of Good Practices for Adoption. A ceremony at the Presidential Palace was attended by the U.S. Ambassador . The Manual sets forth rules that are hoped to be  steps towards better protecting children and adoptive and biological families. The Protocol is said to be a first step in arriving at a law in Guatemala that will allow the implementation of The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and Protection of Rights of Children. The Manual  states that the courts, not private attorneys, should determine whether the child is eligible for adoption in all cases. The impact of this announcement  or how or when it will take effect is not at all clear at this time. It is not expected to be in force right away as there is no budget to support it and aspects of the protocol may be implemented gradually.  Also some detractors of the protocol feel it may be violating the rights of the lawyers and notaries , as well as birth parent rights which are protected under the Constitution of Guatemala.  There could be challenges to the proposal and  to some other laws that are being considered. Guatemala's Vice President stated that these changes will be implemented gradually. The U.S. Government continues to encourage the Government of Guatemala to take measures to reform its adoption process that will lead to greater protections for children and a smooth transition toward implementation of the Hague Convention for Guatemala.

Unrelated to the above event, the US has launched an investigation into the practices of an adoption facilitator, Mary Bonn, who is alleged to have committed fraud and to have committed other illegal adoption practices and violated  US immigration laws.

This investigation may cause cases across the board to be scrutinized differently than in the past. Though there have been many safeguards and practices associated with Guatemalan adoptions that do not occur with other countries' adoptions, (multiple birth parent sign offs after relinquishment and during the adoption processing, to be sure of the mother's intentions and understanding, and DNA testing) it is entirely possible that the above changes and additional scrutiny on top of the normal steps to the adoption and emmigration practice could cause the adoptions of Guatemalan children to be unduly protracted.

Adoptive parents interested in Guatemala must be made fully aware of possible delays and are encouraged to have a back up country/program in mind as well. Agencies are monitoring the situation very carefully in order to inform prospective families and to enable them to make their decisions.

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