AMERICA/GUATEMALA - Bishops of Guatemala say adoptions have become a business for profit

Guatemala City(Agenzia Fides) - "In Guatemala, some people have made adoption of children a profitable business, losing the noble desire to give a home to a child who has been abandoned, or is disabled or unwanted". This affirmation was part of a statement issued by the Bishops' Conference of Guatemala in view of the imminent approval on 11 December of a new Adoption Law.
The statement reads, “people trade the lives of girls and boys as if they were products, purchased through networks of child trafficking”. Many of the children are not given voluntarily, instead we see “trickery, renting of wombs and kidnapping ”. The Bishops say this situation is a symptom of a profound crisis in human and moral values in the country.
The Bishops recall that Guatemala "approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 10 May 1990, and in 2002 Venezuela's Congress approved the Hague Agreement although the President expressed adhesion in the same year, Congress approved the Hague Agreement on 31 May 2007, to come into force on 31 December”. According to the agreement Guatemala must guarantee these agreements promulgating a law on adoption which fulfils the points of the agreement.
Congress must now shoulder its responsibility approving an adoption law which protects and guarantees the rights of the child and adopt a firm position against the excesses and immoral attitudes which have turned adoption into a trade" the Bishops' document concludes. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 10/12/2007; righe 23, parole 297)