The New Adoption Law has been working for a Year now

I read this in the newspaper today. It makes me sad these people are hardly doing a thing for thousands of children waiting in horrible orphanages for a family to love them, meanwhile they earn thousands of Quetzales and spend MILLIONS!

I will try to translate it just as is written in the paper, I also added a link so you can see it, it's written in spanish though. (I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistake.)

The New Adoption Law has been working for a Year

"Mery de Garcia it's about to close the Hogar she runs. She, along with some friends founded "Nuestra Señora de la Piedad" 10 years ago, but this year things have got so difficult they probably won't be able to continue. Only 2 of the 50 children she shelters were adopted, meanwhile the children grow up without a family. Today makes one year since the New Adoption Law started working and only a little over 50 children have been adopted with a budget that goes around Q. 10 million.

This years number is not even close to the one last year: 5 thousand adopted children. "That's because children's theft is over", says Elizabeth de Larios, CNA's president, "before they could get children to sell them and that doesn't happen anymore", explains. Nevertheless the orphanages are full. According to an adoption report from the Haye's mission in 2007, there are over 500 private orphanages in Guatemala, sheltering over 10 thousand children with no parents. CNA has other number: 136 orphanages. "Those are the ones registered in the SOSEP if there are more they must be clandestine", says De Larios."

We can't know an accurate number of private orphanages in Guatemala because the CNA still does not keep a record of them. The article 58 of the Adoption Law granted them a term of 30 days to check and authorize them. It was not fulfilled, none of them is registered. "We are on it" states Jaime Tecú from the CNA.

Also, they haven't finished the Adoption Regulation, that should have been finished at the longest of 60 after the new adoption law started working.  "It's getting its last reviews. We have already sent one version to the president" says Tecú.

"The CNA doesn't want older children, I have children of 10, 11 and 14 year olds and I asked them if they could find a family for them, they didn't even answer my question." states García. "A guatemalan couple is not going to want an older child but an American couple would"." With this new law they just cut our wings to place them in a family in a foreign country" adds. García's orphanage kept working thanks to donations from foreign adoption agencies. "They would pay for legal things and sent us food" now they cannot relate to international adoptees.

Without showing up in the Congress

The congresswoman Annabella de León has stayed waiting three times for the CNA to arrive to the different citations she has set for them. There has been no way, previous commitments have stoped them. "We had a UNICEF workshop, it was impossible for us to show up, but we did excuse ourselves" said De Larios. De León hopes that during January they find a moment to visit her, "I want them to bring the vouchers from the representation expenses" she says. The CNA president earns Q.20 thousand every month that have not been justified infront of the congresswoman. De Larios requested an opinion from the  National Accounting Controler about whether it was against the law for her to charge that amount of money and they said it was not.

"I think there are less than 54 children adopted, if they are saying the truth I want them to bring the files and prove it to me" says the congresswoman. There are 54 children living with their new parents, but only 27 have finalized their adoptions, the rest of them still have paperwork to do. 

"Not one talks about the children that stayed with their parents, those are our biggest achievements" explains De Larios, "we got 28 mothers to keep their children, we have helped them with pshycologic help, you can't see that but it does count".

 

Yes, they might have got some parents to keep their children but what will happen when this families find themselves with not enough money to feed their children and have to find terrible ways to do it? Sending them to beg or work in the streets? 

And what about the older children? they deserve a family too. Guatemala is not a country with a big adoption culture, it is just not near the minds of every guatemalan. And even if they were, most of the people are trying to keep their own families fed and safe under a decent house.