Our letter to UNICEF

Dear Mr. Manriques,

We are writing to you regarding the recent passage of the Ortega Law (Bill 3217) by the Guatemalan Congress. We understand that UNICEF is a major proponent of this legislation, and that it was passed largely through your efforts. Therefore, you have a great deal of influence regarding any amendments being considered.

UNICEF advocates applying the new law as of January 1, 2008 to intercountry adoptions that are already in process. As you well know, Guatemala cannot have a system in place on January 1 to carry out the new law. Therefore, if the Ortega Law is not amended to provide a transition clause allowing in-process adoptions to continue to completion under current law, these adoptions will not take place at all. And then, what will happen to the thousands of children who are so close to becoming members of permanent, stable, loving families? Are the employees of UNICEF going to open your homes to them?

As we near the completion of our adoption, and Congress prepares to vote on amendments to the Ortega Law, we urge you to consider the following:

• The United States, the richest country in the world, has been trying for 15 years to make our adoption system comply with the Hague Treaty. And we finally feel we may be compliant enough to ratify the Treaty next year.

• Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the world, has zero social services system on which to build. You are asking them to create a Hague-compliant adoption system overnight. If the U.S. with all its resources has taken 15 years, how can we expect Guatemala to accomplish this in a few months?

There are many cultural biases, most notably the racial bias of Ladinos against the indigenous, that make it very unlikely that Guatemalan families will adopt the children who need homes. Even President Berger’s daughter went to the Ukraine to adopt, rather than adopting a child in her own country. If you disrupt in-process adoptions, the citizens of Guatemala are not going to step in and raise these children. And their birthmothers are not going to take them back, because nothing will have changed to make them suddenly able to support them.

The Ortega Law as written does not provide a plan, including funding, for creating an actual system for carrying out the law. You must make sure that amendments are passed that create a way for existing and future children in need to have somewhere safe to live, people to take care of them, and money to buy formula, diapers, clothing, and other supplies.

We are in the process of adopting our baby boy, Daniel, from Guatemala. We have been in PGN almost eight weeks. We have enough information about Daniel’s birthfamily to know that they are unable to care for him. If anyone in that family could provide Daniel a home, food, and education, they would.

We urge UNICEF to join the Hague Permanent Bureau and the United States Department of State in supporting an amendment to the Ortega Law that would allow in-process cases like ours to proceed, even if it goes past January 1.

Sincerely,

Jennifer and Eric Goldberg