Children were sold during the armed conflict (internal war)

Link: http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2009/marzo/24/303596.html

Ninos fueron vendidos durante guerra interna
Por Alberto Ramirez E.

Many children who disappeared during the internal armed conflict were sold under the figure of adoptions, according to preliminary analysis conducted on official archives by the Peace Archives Bureau of the Peace Secretariat (SEPAZ). Marco Tulio Alvarez, director of the Peace Archives, notified that they have been able to establish through documents of the Secretariat of Welfare what procedures were conducted to carry out illegal adoptions between 1976 and 1986.

"These [documents] indicated a series of irregularities and illegalities that allowed the disappearance of children during the armed conflict, turning adoption into a business that violated children's rights." The director of the Peace Archives further informed that analysis indicates that when security forces carried out operatives where men and women were executed, these people's children were sent to orphanages ran by the Secretariat of Welfare with documents stating they were "abandonments." Children's names were changed and given in adoption to foreign families, Alvarez explained.

Five thousand children

Nidia Aguilar, Childhood ombudswoman, remembers that when she conformed the Commission for the Search of Disappeared Children it was estimated that some 5000 orphans of the armed conflict were either adopted or disappeared. "There were so many orphaned children that there were specialized "hogares" created to process adoptions. This was done without a problem because at the time there were no laws concerning ICA."

After being separated from their parents, some children found their way to Mexico, while many others were cared by [surviving] communities, Aguilar explained.

Congresswoman Otilia Lux mentioned that when she became part of the Truth Commission, she never learned the exact number of disappeared children, but just as an example, she cited that only from the Rio Negro Massacre (Baja Verapaz, March 1982), there were at least 108 orphans left. "When we created the Truth Commission, we could not have access to these archives or to any documentation that led us to the location of these children, nor were we able to understand the adoption mechanism employed at the time." Lux added, "I saw pictures of children adopted by families from Norway and Sweden, these pictures, from 1999, showed that children were doing well."

The congresswoman emphasized that at least 50 cases of these children were documented because their adoptive parents joined together so that these children, the majority of which were Mayans, learned about their identity, and in some cases, could visit their country.

Alvarez insisted that the goal of the investigation under way is establishing where these minors, who are now adults, are. "These reconstruction is not the product of political revenge, but part of the reconstruction of the historical memory of the country," he emphasized.

Insert:
Tragedies
Families separated during the armed conflict

• Sisters Cristobalina, Elvia and Irma Lopez Hernandez were considered dead from 1983. They were found alive in 2008.

• Siblings Vicenta and Margarito Lopez, separated for 27 years, found each other again in 2007.

• In 2007, the National Commission for Lost Childhood organized the reunion of 35 victims of the armed conflict.

• According to the Remhi report, over 5000 children disappeared during the armed conflict.

Nidia Aguilar Investigations

It is important that all parties, in their fields, research to clarify what happened to the orphans of the armed conflict. Everyone's efforts must add to find out where these children are. The Human Rights Ombudsman has investigated files and found some of these minors.