There is another, perhaps more balanced article on the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7125697.stm
Most supporters of adoption in Guatemala as the only way to provide families for children who otherwise will not have one do not disagree with the need for some reform to the system. However this new law, which involves placing huge reliance on a bureaucratic and governmental system which has failed in every other respect, has no chance of working - it simply is not good enough.

The most important quote has been left till last

"But Congressman Rolando Morales, a driving force behind the reform bill, acknowledges that the authorities have no idea how many children are involved, or what the adoption homes plan to do with those children without a family lined up.

"We don't know if they are going to give them back to their mothers or what they are going to do with them. A lot of awful things may happen," he said.

He also fails to say that the new law closes the hogares which he referrs to as adoption homes, although many of them also look after other children who are not freed for adoption.

And have any of the NGOs and Government authorities who have been fighting and planning for this awful piece of legislation, which most agree will not function to preserve the best interests of the chilren, made any effort at all to provide alternative care situations for the children who will now not find permanent families? Of course not. Like the writer of this piece they are consumed by some political zeal which stops them from really thinking through the outcomes of their actions on the most vulnerable. He is happy to say awful things will happen but not do anything to prevent it.

And to be accurate the case against Bruce Harris was not dismissed, under huge political pressure the court made no finding - and Bruce Harris went on to be tried and found guilty of paedophilia and prostitution with a young man who had been a resident at a Casa Alianza shelter - a really honourable man representing a really honourable institution -whose predecessors had also been found guilty of fraud and sexual offences - I think not

PLEASE READ THIS ALSO AS A RESPONSE TO COMMENTS ON ITEM http://gsn.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2007/12/7/3397329.html

Guatemala and adoptions. Putting those two words in the same sentence is enough to strike fear into those of us who comment about affairs Guatemalan. Cautions about holes and digging, or fires and fuel stay one's hand. The reason is obvious – it is such a hot potato that no matter how you express yourself you risk being jumped on from a great height. I could decide to say nothing, but I hope I have a bit more courage than that. Following some comments on this and the linked post, some of which are controversial to say the least, I am therefore going to devote some space to a response.

First of all, there seems to be an unfortunate tendency to regard criticism of the Guatemalan adoption process as in some way a criticism of adoptive parents involved in it, that making negative comments about the current system is, by extension, to impugn those parents’ integrity. I want to make it quite clear nothing could be further from the truth. I have no quarrel with any parents, and if there is anything here which has led to this impression I would be grateful if it is pointed out to me. GSN itself takes no position on adoptions from Guatemala, it is for each family to make up their own mind.

Having clarified that I would like to move on to some of the specific remarks which have been made.

a) I have no brief to defend Casa Alianza but the allegations made by Stevan and Anonymous about its former directors are all to my knowledge completely incorrect and potentially libelous. There is no evidence that I can find about any former directors being charged with or convicted of fraud. As to the well-known matter of one former director’s sexual activity, it is worth pointing out that the other party was 19 years old and no charges of paedophilia or other sexual offence were ever brought. I would appreciate the writers either providing evidence for these claims or withdrawing their allegations. Further, according to my information the Court of Twelfth Instance absolved Harris of all the charges brought against him in the defamation case.

b) Several countries, most a great many years before the UK belatedly joined their number, suspended intercountry adoptions from Guatemala because they regarded the process there with suspicion. Are they *all* the gullible victims of a sustained deception?

c) Statistics. The comment about the adoption rate in the earlier adoption article is derived from CEJIL, to which there is a link in the article. As suggested, I have looked up the work of Dr Peter Selman. I have read the presentation “Towards a demography of adoptions: making sense of secondary data” he presented at the 2006 conference on adoption research. This states “if we are to make comparison between states of origin it is necessary to relate the NUMBER of adoptions to the number of births or under 5 population. If we do this we find the adoption RATIO or RATE is higher for Guatemala, Cambodia and Haiti than in China which sends the most children for intercountry adoption”. On these measures Guatemala still comes second on both in the world, after Bulgaria, for giving up children for adoption.

d) The effectiveness or otherwise of the Hague Convention as implemented in Guatemala. Having been a Guatemala watcher for many years I have seen n initiatives, investigations and reviews come and go supposedly to fix the country's social ills, all of them window dressing exercises that ended up fixing nothing. I am not claiming that reforming the adoption law will be a panacea either, nor have I expressed any opinion either in favour or against the new law as it now stands.

In finishing I would like to make the following clear. While I will say again that I would never wish to criticise those who have adopted from Guatemala I reserve the right to be very suspicious indeed about a process where a great deal of money is involved in a country which has a very weak rule of law. Can any of us say we are really comfortable about that? I think it is a bit of a leap to assume that by harbouring these suspicions I can be accused of therefore having no care for the most vulnerable – I think you will find that it is quite the opposite.

Dear Gillian,

I'm sorry if you feel under fire, but you have chosen to use some very strong language, so it is hardly surprising you have provoked a reaction. I am not questioning your motives, but I think 1) the language you have used is unnecessarily inflammatory and 2) some of the things you have written are just plain incorrect. For example, for all the reasons I mentioned in my reply to your original post (DNA testing, birth parent interviews, etc.), it would be virtually impossible for a kidnapped child to be adopted internationally. Yet you (and countless other journalists - you are not the only one) constantly make a link between kidnappings and intercountry adoptions. And we all know what happens if you repeat a lie often enough... Incidentally, Casa Alianza and Bruce Harris in particular have been very persistent in pushing the idea that kidnapped children can be adopted internationally, and also that most adoptions from Guatemala are illegal because a judge is not involved (I believe they were the ones behind the misuse of the 93.7% figure which, as I mentioned before, simply refers to the number of children relinquished by their birth parents for adoption, which is the norm in Guatemala, unlike in other countries such as China). The fact that many news organizations and journalists use Casa Alianza (unquestioningly) as a source may well explain why nearly all articles on the subject refer to the risk of kidnapped babies being adopted, and also quote the 93.7% figure. Don't ask me why Casa Alianza chooses to persist with this kind of misinformation, but it does.
Don't get me wrong, it is not that I believe all is rosy in the garden as far as adoption from Guatemala is concerned. But neither does it have much in common with the image portrayed in the media. I believe that there are flaws in the system, and I would like to see them eliminated, but preferably in a sensible way which does not simply leave all those children eligible for adoption in Guatemala completely in the lurch, which is what the proposed Guatemalan legislation risks doing (even the people involved in implementing it are admitting to that).

Dear Gillian

In the same spirit I have no problems wih anyone voicing their opinion - although some of the language used was quite loaded - but you have fundamentally misunderstood the points being made. There is a world of difference between adoption reform - which ends up with a better more ethical and legal sytem of adoptions - and adoption closure via introducing systems which make the process unworkable. In the latter case the victims are the children who end up without permanence - without their right to a family which offers thier fundamental needs of care safety etc. being met.

I note that you did not reply to the question about Rolando Morales - who stated quite openly that because of the new law terrible things would happen to chiuldren - and came up with no plans - for what could be done to prevent that - indeed showed no concern or remorse over that fact.

Please look at the records of Bruce Ritter and Kevin Lee Kite, Edmund J Burns and Pat Atkinson. There is a significant record of fraud and sexual misconduct at Casa Alianza and its parent Covenant House - and I could go on.

With regard to the BH trial the case was actually not brought - as under huge poitical pressure the Guatemalan judicial system folded and reneged on its responsibility. That does not alter the legal basis of the atempt tp prosecute which was curtailed for purely legal reasons

Most of the countries who have closed to Guatemala have done so because Guatemala is not a Hague Convention country - although there is no evidence that the Convention actually does anything to improve the efficacy of the adoption process. There have been remarkably few cases of illegal or even unethical adoption practice brought to trial in Guatemala - despite the best efforts of its opponents.

I am glad you agree that Guatemala is not the no 1 country for adoptions in the world - the point I was trying to make is that with statistics you can twist any story. The media continually state Guatemala has the highest adoption rate - well in some ways it does and in some ways it doesn't - what is more important is to look at the underlying reasons - poverty, inequality for women, lack of birth control, racism, a failed political and legal/judicial system etc etc. and seek to find ways to change that I believve. If you want you can prove anything with statistics.

So in the end it comes down to the question of whether or not you believe that - whilst we can all agree that it would be fantastic to live in a world where adoption was not neccessary - intercountry adoption offers a valid and valuable chance for some children to have a family. If the answer is yes then you should work to make the adoption system work - and that may require the system to be radically reformed. If the answer is no then you are going against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child among others.

Incidentally one of the reasons I condemn the new law (apart from the fact that it is unworkable, does not contain any budget provision and denies women the right to relinquish legally) is that it will mean children will spend two years in institutional care - and on Friday a paper will be published in Science magazine which proves the longer the period in institutional care the greater the damage