The State of Guatemalan Adoptions

Dear Friends and Family,

I know this is long, but please take a few minutes today to read it, as it means a lot to me. Due to the increasing sensationalistic and inflammatory recent media reports on international adoption and in particular, Guatemalan adoption, I feel the need to educate those of you who I know love and care about CiCi and us. It deeply pains me that the media's inaccurate reporting of the situation with Guatemalan adoptions lends people to view international adoptions with a skeptical eye, and what that does to the self esteem of internationally adopted children kills me. If the public truly understood the REAL issues going on in Guatemala, and what has happened in the past with other countries and adoptions, they would be shocked and enraged at the injustice. After meeting many adopting families while visiting Ciara in Guatemala and reading about and discussing the politics of adoption throughout our process, I think I have a real understanding of the issues. We were also lucky enough to work with our adoption agency, For This Child, run by Traci and Chip Orr. They work with Focus on Adoption - an organization that in conjunction with the US State Department helps keep international adoption an ethical, viable option for children in need. They have passed along a tremendous amount of information and wisdom which has helped me to more fully understand the state of Guatemalan adoptions today.
So why all the media attention and controversy lately concerning Guatemalan adoptions?
1. A Pending Crisis- a Misguided President in an election year, Guatemalan President Oscar Berger, has announced plans to effectively suspend all adoptions into the United States as of January 1, 2008. This leaves the lives of more than 5,000 children who have already been matched to adoptive parents in limbo. The birthparents for these children have already relinquished their parental rights and as a result, these children currently have no family home. The effective suspension destroys the prospect for the placement of these children in a permanent, safe and loving family. Even more disturbing, the Guatemalan government currently does not have the finances or facilities to provide housing for these 5,000 children. For these reasons, Joint Council urges you to support the Guatemala 5000 Initiative. If the president really cared about the poor and the children of Guatemala, his administration would be focused on improving their lives in Guatemala rather than stamping out adoption- a viable legal right that birth families and children are entiled to have.
President Berger also stands to gain MILLIONS from of all places- UNICEF.

2.UNICEF- A Misguided Aid Organization. UNCIEF does some very positive things for children around the world, but their misguided radical position on intercountry adoption is extremely detrimental to the children of Guatemala and other countries. UNICEF has reportedly pledged over $24 Million dollars to President Berger's political party ( and you thought the $$ was going to the children!) UNICEF's Stance on Intercountry Adoption Jeopardizes Children. The policies and rhetoric of UNICEF ignore the social, ethnic, and economic realities of many countries and advocate for reactionary legal reforms that restrict intercountry adoption to a point where children are forced to live in underfunded institutions rather than joining families abroad. Clearly, international adoption deserves rigorous oversight. And in a perfect world, it might make more sense to place orphans with relatives or neighbors in their home country. But in a perfect world, there would be no orphans in the first place. Guatemala today is a country that simply cannot support all its orphans. It is a country that needs inter-country adoption to provide a better life to at least a small percentage of the tens of thousands of children living in dire poverty. By UNICEF'S own statistics, 67% of the children there suffer from malnutrition. They need to recognize that change takes time and that hastily introduced reforms can do more harm than good.

3.THE HAGUE TREATY is being implemented by the US- good in theory, a disaster in reality. For the children the treaty was supposed to protect, the results have been catastrophic. PLEASE read the following link, especially the first few pages.
www.focusonadoption.com/p...upport.pdf
The article was written by Focus on Adoption and it provides an excellent summary of the issues.

What can you do to help?
1. By reading this email, and educating yourself, you can help squash the negative image and inaccurate information circulated by the media.

2.EASY- Click here to sign an online petition www.focusonadoption.com/index.html

3. This one takes More Effort, but it would be really helpful: www.jcics.org/Guatemala50...participate

THANK YOU for reading this. It means a lot to us.