Post from the Big List...

Susana Luarca works for the ADA in Guatemala. I have their site posted down on the left of my blog. They are a group of lawyers who are fighting to keep adoption an option in Guat. She posted a message on a yahoo group (looks like its called Single Adoption Guatemala) and someone else posted it on the Guatemala Big List message board. I thought it was an interesting post; of course, take it for what its worth. The ADA is biased because they are adoption attornies and earn their money from adoption, but they were there to help PAPs back in the 2003 Hague mess.

From: Susana Luarca
To: SINGLEADOPTIVEGUATEMALA@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: [SINGLEADOPTIVEGUATEMALA]

Dear Friends,

The Guatemalan Congress passed a law approving the Hague Convention of Inter country adoptions. That law, in other words, the approval of the convention, will take effect on December 31st. 2007. The Guatemalan president will have the door open to send an instrument of accession to the Hague Conference, making Guatemala part of the sixty something countries who are parties to that convention. The effect of the accession will be three months later, If it is done sometime in January, 2008, it will be effective in May 1st., 2008. Therefore, the end of the year is not a cut off date and nothing will change then.

Guatemala's Congress has drafted a new proposal, No. 3635 that is Hague Compliant and even though it creates what I believe to be unnecessary bureaucracy for the birth mothers to relinquish their children, it is a very decent proposal and an hones effort to reconcile the Hague convention legal framework with the Guatemalan Constitution and adoption process. If you want to read it is at the JCICS website, in English and at the Guatemalan Congress website in Spanish.

Any process started before the Hague Convention comes into effect or a new adoption law becomes effective, will be finalized according to the current system. In the worst case scenario, that the Ortega Law becomes effective, that provision is included too in such proposal.

It has been criticized by some, that children continued to be placed although the system was not working during the Hague fiasco. Because I am one of the lawyers who did so, I must explain that the suspension of adoptions by the PGN was ILLEGAL and so was declared by the Court of Amparo and the accession was ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. The legal system remained the same and we did what we thought was best for the children. The families knew that we were fighting to restore the order,because many processes were stalled, but also that many children needed families right then and right there. It is very easy to say, "no more placements",but when the children are brought to you and there is a legal system in place that allows them to have a family, it would be wrong to deny it to them, just because a bunch of cold hearted bureaucrats are abusing their power and refusing to do their work, to please UNICEF, who offers and gives "incentives" to support its policy against adoptions.

Under Proposal 3635, the implementation of the Central Authority and the accreditation of the private entities that would collaborate to do adoptions under the Hague Convention would not be a problem. The real problem is that the DOS, UNICEF and The Hague Conference, reject the proposal 3635 because it would prove that a country may become Hague Convention and keep doing a great deal of adoptions at the same time, something that no country has done so far, with the exception of Colombia, who had its laws changed again, to prevent that from happening.

Yes, the situation may get serious,but only if we allow it. If we stop doing adoptions, it would be us, not them, who would close the door to those children. For that reason, I urge everybody to stop mentioning the end of the year as the date when everything will close down, because that is not so. We would not let that happen. We won before and will win again.

Best regards,
Susana Luarca, Attorney at Law, ADA