A new friend who really cares for children in need wrote asking a very good question. I ended up writing a long answer, then thought, well, this blog is well named, and so it maybe will be best placed here.
Her Question:
Do you think the children of Guatemala will benefit in the long run from the closing of International Adoption by UNICEF? My volunteer visits in orphanages led me to think adoption was a good thing...and it breaks my heart to think of the thousands of more kids that will be without forever families. I would like to believe that some good will emerge.
My response:
Good Question! I wish I had the answers that it deserves.
I really do not think that the social fabric of Guatemala will be much affected by the halt to relinquishment adoptions. I think we who have children’s homes will get more children initially. We are already getting children the lawyers do not think they can place before the end of the year. But over all, not much will change. Guatemalan society is recuperating from the civil war, and is much better now that it was 5 or 10 years ago. Yet, there are more children in children’s homes now that 5 or 10 years ago. This is in spite of the thousands of adoptions, which, had they been an answer, would have some affect. I think, as I said in a previous blog, this is because the children given by relinquishment are not in that same set. People have said it is because the children were allowed to die, etc. But there is no statistically relevant evidence of that. We are pretty involved with the women and children at risk, and do not see it that way, and so say the extreme is not the norm. The statistics are inching towrd better, but only inching. We are seeing better nutrition, and better education, and better health care available to more people. I get frustrated with outrageously paid spokespeople for international adoptions, who make outrageous unverifiable claims regarding the horror of Guatemalan society, and the only hope is adoption. Then when I have spoken regarding the corruption in the process, these same people say “there is no proof”.
The really sad part of Unicef’s influence is that adoptions must be a part of the solution of children at risk in ANY society. So stopping it is only a negative. It won’t stop the illegal movement of children and adults for evil purposes. It may increase that sector. Their offer of $28,000,000 was a positive, but has been trumpeted to be a pay-off to the president for pushing through their agenda. Having watched the Berger’s for 10 years (He was mayor of Guatemala City when we came here), I truly do not believe this, and feel that the people who started that line are greed motivated slanderers. But Guatemala’s Presidents and the UN have no defense, historically, against those accusations. Unfortunately, the money will arrive after the Berger’s leave, and so we will not have the benefit of their oversight. They really did a lot of good things these last four years, in small communities throughout the country, in restructuring the government to make it less corruption friendly, and in an unprecedented fashion of managing relief efforts when the hurricanes and mudslides created huge problems. But these efforts did not gain friends in the special interest sectors, and made a number of enemies, as reform will in this atmosphere. We pray that the next president continue these programs.
We have and are speaking with UNICEF, and the Secretaria de Bienestar Social (who will most likely oversee adoption activities in the future) and everyone says that adoptions of abandoned children will continue. And we have heard that Adoption lawyers are positioning themselves to control these cases in the future. ( The HUGE problem with continuing with "abandonment" adoptions while not having dealt with corruption, is that there will not even be the protection of the DNA verification, and so a) charges of baby stealing will be everywhere, therefore b) the process will be even slower than the current excruciating pace.) The continuance of adoptions has not been the case in other countries that have adopted the Hague conventions. We will be working to keep adoptions open, with the drumbeat of the international RIGHTS OF THE CHILD that state the RIGHT TO A FAMILY, but will really be angry if the corrupt system just changes clothes.
A big cultural dysfunction here is the attitude of average Guatemalans, who expect corruption, and don’t demand better from their elected officials. This contributes to the problems. Poverty in places like Guatemala is not a result of lazy workers, or of poor resources. It is a result of centuries ( millennia) of the powerful not simply not helping the poor, but actively keeping the poor from helping themselves. Another huge dysfunction is that Americans feel they can solve any situation in any country with money. This has caused in many countries over many years, a confusion between a semblance of control and real solutions. The combination of those two cultural weaknesses creates the nuclear fusion of corruption, that in this case, permeates adoptions in Guatemala. So you add UNICEF. It is my impression that there is no problem so bad anywhere in the world, that adding UNICEF’s influence cannot make it worse.
I can’t get too angry at the people of Guatemala or the states. The acceptance of corruption is, I think, a vestige of those centuries of control by tyrants and despots. Perhaps the justice gene has been filtered from the gene pool, as those who evidenced it were “disappeared”. And the Americans in this case have the best of intentions, wanting to use their money to rescue children. I think things are changing, there is worldwide awareness and communication, and there is much more individual empowerment than even 10 years ago. But until the justice gene can make a comeback, American willingness to pay a lot of money will corrupt whatever system is in place.
This may seem really elementary, but it seems that people in the States refuse to accept it: The key element of corruption is MONEY.
Americans wonder why they are not appreciated more, when all they want to do is help, and to spend money in the country. But I think that there is no empathy here, first of all, towards “rich” people, then secondly for people who are perceived to be involved in corruption. Culturally, in Guatemala, a person who does not manage his money carefully does not deserve to keep it. The extreme of this is the “rule” that if you do not have your possessions locked, and under armed guard, it’s not really stealing if someone “finds” it. So Americans throwing money around is not seen as a good characteristic, even though it will be received.
But Guatemalans have responded to true charitable acts, and honor people who are not either buyers or sellers. Shyrel benefits from this reputation. I saw it again last week. A neighbor asked how a recent court situation went, and when I explained it, he was quick, and resigned to expect the outcome had been corrupted and money motivated. I related an anecdote apart from the main issues, how an official had thought to punish Shyrel for disagreeing with a previous decision by blocking a potential income for our home. This income process had been pretty standard, but in this case, the “punishment” was blunted, because Shyrel had always refused to accept that funding when offered previously, and so was not affected by this move. It was interesting to see his heartfelt response, of maybe glee in the confounding of an official, but also hope in blunting corruption. He said: “Guatemala needs more people who cannot be bought”.
