Children in Guatemala

These are some of the Guatemala’s challenges:

• Chronic poverty. More than half of the country lives below the poverty line.
• A huge disparity of resources between a few rich and many poor.
• Malnutrition for tens of thousands of children.
• Hurricanes and other natural disasters.
• High crime rates.
• Low level of education and literacy.
• Children forced into dangerous, high risk jobs.
• Children abused at home and on the streets.

All of these feed each other. Children suffering from malnutrition cannot sustain energy for school. An impoverished village cannot repair itself when it is leveled by a hurricane. Parents feeling the hopelessness of chronic poverty do not have the resources to nurture their children. Children forced to life on the street turn to crime to survive.

Together, these situations become like a huge, imprisoning wall, with those inside feeling trapped and unable to escape.

This situation is similar in many other Central American, South American and Caribbean countries. Some of these countries have provisions for orphaned or abandoned children to be internationally adopted: these include Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Honduras, and Haiti. Currently, adoption from these countries tends to be unpredictable.

Adoption from Guatemala

“Endemic poverty, high fertility rates, and the stigma of unwed motherhood are the major reasons that children are available for adoption. Birthmothers contact an adoption agency or attorney and often relinquish their babies only days after birth. Children are generally well cared for by foster mothers during the wait for adoption. Seventy-seven percent of children adopted were under age 1 at the time of adoption last year (2003). Many adopting parents receive extensive information about the birth family, and some even meet them." – Adoptive Families Magazine

Adoptions have been growing in popularity. In 1998, 911 children were placed with US families; in 2004 it was more than 3500. Families returning for their second adoption find that the process has changed and that it is taking longer. There is concern about corruption and fraud, and the U.S. government takes extra steps (such as DNA tests for birthmother and child) to ensure that the children are being adopted ethically and legally.

As the system is now, adoptive parents or their agency work with a Guatemalan attorney, who coordinates the adoption through the families and judicial system in Guatemala. Families may visit their child while waiting for the adoption to be finalized.

For further information on the country, click on Guatemala.