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http://www.sundayherald.com/39550

The ‘legitimate’ child-trafficking rings who sell Guatemala’s young …
and quiet dissenting voices


Guatemala: Elizabeth Mistry

It is almost eight years to the day since Gustavo Tovar last saw his son,
Osmin. Child protection officers from the attorney-general’s office arrived
at the family home in January 1996 and took away two children. Now he has only
a few photographs to remind him of his loss.
Tovar, a bus driver, says he doesn’t know who first made the allegations,
that Osmin, then aged four, and his half-brother – not Tovar’s son – were
being abused, but the local authorities wasted no time in taking the boys into
protective custody.

Shortly afterwards, Tovar and Osmin’s mother, his then- partner Flor de Maria
Ramirez, were relieved when officers told them that neither child showed any
sign of having suffered. The couple assumed the children would soon be back at
home in their rundown barrio in the capital, Guatemala City.

But then, instead of being returned to their parents, the boys were declared to
be “in a state of abandonment� and sent to a children’s home in the
capital, El Hogar de los Niños de Guatemala. Under Guatemalan law, an
abandoned child may be offered for adoption, and, almost before Tovar knew what
was happening, a judge, who has since been relieved of her duties, authorised a
request from the office of lawyer Saracho de Umana that the boys be adopted.

In a country with almost 50% of births outside wedlock, it isn’t unusual for
the father’s name to be missing from a child’s birth certificate. But Tovar
had asserted his right to have his name recorded as the father and he was
therefore shocked when the court failed to notify him that the hearing into the
“abandonment� was to take place.

In a similar manner the boys’ maternal grandparents, who had also expressed a
desire to care for them, were denied the opportunity to attend.

The judge ruled that Osmin could be adopted and the boy, now 12, was handed
over to a couple named Borz from Pennsylvania. They did not answer calls to
their home. Osmin’s half-brother was also adopted, by another couple from the
same state, and both boys are now US citizens.

Last week, Bruce Harris, the British executive director of Casa Alianza, a non-
governmental organisation that campaigns for children’s rights in Latin
America, appeared before a Guatemalan court. He was there to answer defamation
charges following claims he first made at a press conference seven years ago,
when he named lawyer Susana Saracho de Umana, the then-wife of one of the
country’s most senior judges, as involved with a widespread child-trafficking
and illegal adoption ring.

In spite of the fact that a raid on a property belonging to Saracho de Umana
found several infants whose presence she appeared unable to explain, she was
not charged and then proceeded to sue Harris for defamation. In Guatemala,
truth is not a defence against defamation and Harris was tried in a criminal
court. Saracho de Umana continues to practise as an adoption lawyer – and
acts as legal consultant to the El Hogar de los Niños home from where Osmin
Tovar was sent to the US.

Around 3000 Guatemalan children are adopted by families from overseas every
year. Almost all go the US and Canada. In 2002, the last year for which there
are figures available, 15 came to the UK. With no firm legislation governing
adoption, prospective parents have to find their way through a murky system of
agents and lawyers, who charge an average of between £11,000 and £22,000 per
child. Conservative estimates value the Guatemalan baby business at around £32
million per year.



“The courts use poverty as a reason not to return children to their
biological parents but just because a mother – or father – is poor it
doesn’t mean they love their children any the less,� Harris told the Sunday
Herald between court appearances.

“We are sure that the adoptive parents had good intentions in offering their
home to Osmin but this is causing great pain and anguish to many people.�

Osmin’s case is the first of several that Casa Alianza plans to bring to the
Inter-American Commission in the coming months.

“This is going to take time,� said Harris, “but we believe that while
there are questions over the way these children have been separated from their
families, these adoptions are illegal and that the children should be reunited
with their biological parents.�

For Tovar, however, there is little hope for him of ever seeing his children
again. When asked what he would tell Osmin’s new parents, if he could, he
said: “I don’t wish them any ill will, but I would like to talk to them, to
ask them to look after him for me, to teach him good manners and to love.

“And I would like to talk to him, to see him or for him to visit me in
Guatemala.

“Osmin is now part of their family as well and they have had the greatest
happiness … to hear him call them papa and mama.�


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A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown