Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA

Guatemalan Police Rescue Stolen Baby

Juan Carlos Llorca, Associated Press

July 18, 2007

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - Guatemalan police rescued a two-month-old boy who had been stolen from his home and arrested four people who were allegedly preparing the baby for illegal adoption, an official said.

The rescue comes amid growing concerns about the Central American country's export of thousands of babies each year to adoptive parents abroad.

It was unclear where the baby was to have been sent, but police detained four people in the house where the baby was rescued and found a false birth certificate for the boy, said Jesus Esquivel, assistant chief of criminal investigations for the police force.

"Our investigations indicate that they were already at the stage of processing the adoption," Esquivel said

However, Guatemala's Attorney General's office, the institution that oversees adoptions, said that so far no application for the baby's adoption, either under his real or false name, had yet been found. The baby could have had another fake birth certificate or the suspects may have not yet filed the application.

The suspects include the owner of the orphanage where the child was found and three employees. The boy was reportedly stolen from his parents' home in June.

Officials provided no details the abduction of the child.

The U.S. State Department, citing rampant problems of fraud and extortion, said in March it no longer recommends that Americans adopt children from Guatemala. U.S. officials have said there were frequent cases of birth mothers pressured to sell their babies and adoptive U.S. parents targeted by extortionists.

Under Guatemalan laws, unregulated notaries act as baby brokers who recruit birth mothers, handle all paperwork and complete adoptions in less than half the time it takes in other countries.

Under that system, more than 4,000 Guatemalan babies were adopted by U.S. parents last year, making Guatemala the second highest source of U.S. adoptions after China.

In May, the Guatemalan Congress ratified Tuesday the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions, which could sharply reduce the number of Guatemalan babies adopted by U.S. citizens each year.

It would be unlikely this stolen baby would have been adopted by an American family due to mandatory DNA testing required by the U.S. embassy to grant the infant a visa.

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