Guatemala Re-Open for ICA - Not EXACTLY

Boy, I take one Friday afternoon and evening away from Guatadopt and the whole world changes...

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_8560/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=QuQ0taLO

The CNA has issued a statement about reopening for ICA. This is a positive first step in progress toward possibly having a functioning ICA system someday... For now, they are apparently launching a two-year PILOT program with up to four countries, you must signal their interest in the next couple of weeks.

You can click on more for some interpretation and a translation of what CNA said...

So what does this mean? Key takeaways in my mind (some being opinion):
1.) The US has said before that Guatemala hasn't met all of their documentary Hague requirements and that until they do, the US will not recognize Guatemala as being Hague compliant. This appears to be Guatemala saying they've done their part. So the question is "will DOS send this letter to them". I'd love the answer to that one...
2.) This pilot program will be very limited and will be focused on the children who are traditionally the hardest to place. It is very interesting, and logical, that it will be a "push" rather "pull" oriented system. Nothing happens until Guatemala says it has a child. There will be no registry of waiting PAPs.
3.) We're at least two years out from any normal ICA system

I think one thing we all need to come to terms with, and is clearly stated in the annoucement below, is that things will never go back to to how it was before. More than likely, if it ever happens, by the time a normal US couple can look to Guatemala as a place to grow their family with any certainty, we'll all be too old to be wanting to adopt. More importantly, as we look to the future rather than dwelling in the past, is that at least those most difficult to care for and place may find homes soon.

And for one last thought, my guess is that this has no impact whatsoever on any of the in-process cases...

CNA STATEMENT

OFFICIAL INVITATION TO THE CENTRAL AUTHORITIES OF THE RECEIVING COUNTRIES TO PRESENT A LETTER OF INTEREST TO COOPERATE WITH THE INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION IN GUATEMALA.

The National Council of Adoptions will begin a pilot plan, with the purpose of expanding its operating capacities in the search of international families, for children who it has not been able to integrate into a Guatemalan family. For that effect, and to begin the cooperation with some central authorities of receiving countries, members of the Convention of The Hague, related to the Protection of the Child and the Cooperation on the subject of International Adoption, puts at your disposal, the following information:

1.Background

As a result of the armed conflict that Guatemala lived during 1960-1996, many children lost their families, becoming orphans. National and international adoptions begun with the purpose of finding families for these children. Nevertheless, as time went by, this situation generated an out of proportions demand for Guatemalan children.

During 30 years in Guatemala, there operated a system of international adoptions based on private requests processed mainly through notaries and without an adequate control by the entities of the state. This system generated abuses of different types that violated the human rights of the children and their families of origin. In this way children were handed in directly for the exchange of money and a real trade was made.
This situation was stopped with the approval and entry into force of the law of adoptions and the Convention of The Hague 1993, on December 31, 2007.

The law created the National Council of Adoptions CNA [for its initials in Spanish], as the Central Authority on the subject of adoption, an autonomous entity responsible for the implementation of a system of adoptions that will answer to the superior interest of the children. In 2008 and 2009, the CNA designed the technical guidelines of work and its institution that basically promotes national adoption. The time has come to broaden the operating capacity of the CNA, in search of collaborators from abroad, that will allow them to find families for Guatemalan children, who couldn’t find Guatemalan families.

2.Number and profile of the children in state of adoptability

About this we must make the following explanations:
The number and profile of children that require international adoption has changed, radically. Under the former system, 5,000 yearly adoptions were registered during the last years, most of the children were boys and girls younger than one year old and in good health, different from the reality of the unprotected children; therefore, we must emphasize that the number and profile of the children for which protection through adoption will be looked for, nationally and internationally, will never again correspond with the numbers of the past.

The actual trend in the adoptions in Guatemala is coming close to what exists in the other Latin American countries, which is the profile of the children of the system of protection for which a Guatemalan family hasn´t been found is: children who are older (around first years of school age and older), groups of siblings, children with health, mental or emotional issues and children that they haven’t been able to place in national families.

About the number of children with the potential need of national or international adoption, it is hard to estimate it, because Guatemala is now in a transition phase, which makes the management of the protection institutions of the children and among other things, the social and family investigation and the legal determination of their situation, difficult. The actual number is 200 children, they have been declared adoptable by the children’s courts in the year 2008. Although this number will vary according to the development of the work of the system of protection, it is an indicator that the needs of adoption, national and international, will remain in the hundreds and not the thousands, as in the past.

3. Types of collaboration
As a way to respect the subsidiarity of international adoption, in relation to national adoption and not to overload the multidisciplinary technical team of the CNA, files of request to adopt from foreign candidates, won’t be received. The CNA will promote a system of requirement of foreign families, according to the needs of the children and the moment they are presented. That is, it will be the CNA who will send the files of the children who need to be adopted internationally, to the receiving States and not vice versa.

That way, the CNA wants to implement a two year pilot project, with a maximum number of four Accredited Organizations and their corresponding Central Authority. This pilot project will have 2 sides, one is the adoption and another wider one is the subject of the protection of children.

We invite the Central Authorities interested, to get in contact with the CNA, who will send them more information about this project. No Accredited Organization can apply independently; it will always have to be within the framework of this project and through the corresponding Central Authority of their country.

The interested Central Authorities must send a letter written in Spanish, stating their interest of cooperation to the CNA, during the period between November 19 and December 3, 2009, to receive complementary information of the project that will be implemented.

The countries that have more than one Central Authority, must make this process through the Central Authority registered before the Convention of the Hague.

Sincerely,

National Council of Adoptions of Guatemala, Central Authority.

Posted by Kevin at November 21, 2009 09:07 AM