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Ontario Acts Against Illicit Baby Trade The Ontario government will prohibit most adoptions from Guatemala because of concerns about the theft and sale of babies from that country, says a Central American child welfare organization. The Ministry of Community and Social Services is moving to bar any adoptions of babies brokered by private lawyers, allowing only adoptions that have been investigated and processed through the country's courts, the organization says. “What they're saying is ... they will only accept court-abandoned children,” said Bruce Harris, regional director for Casa Alianza, which operates out of Costa Rica. He said the ministry informed Casa Alianza of the rule change within the past several days. Instead, Ontario will allow only so-called judicial adoptions, where the Guatemalan courts declare a baby has been abandoned. Such a step requires a far more rigorous investigation of the parents and family of the baby being given up, Mr. Harris said, and accounts for only about 10 per cent of adoptions out of Guatemala. Widespread allegations have hovered over the Guatemalan baby trade for years, including charges that babies are frequently bought or stolen, that mothers are coerced into giving up their newborn infants or even paid to conceive. Guatemala is one of the chief sources of adopted babies to Canada, after China and Russia. There were 67 approved adoptions from Guatemala in 1997 and 73 in 1998 through approved adoptions. Casa Alianza places that figure much higher, at 138 for 1997 and 275 for 1998. The fee paid for adopting a baby from the country can be anywhere between $15,000 and $22,000 U.S. Adoptions generate $25 million (US) each year for Guatemala. “It's become one of our biggest non-traditional exports,” Mr. Harris said. But because of the allegations, the province has not licensed an agency here for Guatemalan adoptions this year, since the Intercountry Adoption Act took effect in March. The act put in place stricter rules in keeping with an 1993 international agreement on such adoptions. Ken Plotnik of the St. Anne Adoption Centre in Stratford, which is negotiating for a license to handle adoptions from Guatemala, said the government has grown increasingly wary of Guatemala. “We're trying to work with them to find a way whereby they will feel comfortable with allowing adoptions to continue even if it restricts it enormously,” he said. But concern over the illegal movement of babies has lingered for years. In 1997, the Canadian embassy began implementing DNA testing for adoptions. The testing revealed many women giving up babies for adoption were not the infants’ biological mothers, and had likely been paid to pretend to be. This year the illegal movement of babies out of the country was the subject of another United Nations report earlier this year. The report concluded, “legal adoption appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Since huge profits can be made, the child has become an object of commerce rather than the focus of law.” Since the report, the Ontario government has focused its attention on how to ensure adoptions from Guatemala are above board, said Patricia Fenton, executive director of the Adoption Council of Ontario and president of the Adoption Council of Canada. “The report by the United Nations raised some considerable concern about the practices there,” Ms. Fenton said. “(The report) says that their estimation of the situation is that legal adoptions are the exception, not the rule. If that continues to be the case and is substantiated, then it would be difficult for our government to give the nod to that,” she said. [ARTICLES] |