Babies For Export
Total length 13 mins 36 secs
10.02.13
The dream of rags to riches captures the imagination of most of the world’s poor, and Guatemalans are no exception. But the odds are against them. A third of the Guatemalan population lives in extreme poverty, only 10 % have a steady job, and one breadwinner has to earn enough to go round the whole family.
The average family has 6 children - most of them were unplanned. For several years now secret addresses have been circulating among women with unwanted pregnancies. They have heard that a chance of help is available to them.
02.49
This young woman is six months pregnant. She is talking to a woman who arranges adoptions. The young mother has her doubts - she has heard talk of child prostitution and organ trade.
03.05
Those are just rumours, the woman from the adoption agency assures her. The young mother-to-be knows that she cannot afford another child - she already has three as it is.
She wants to give this baby up for adoption as she did with her daughter two years ago.
03.22
Here, in the back rooms of this house, babies awaiting adoption are looked after. They stay until adoptive parents are found for them by an agency, and a lawyer has dealt with all of the formalities.
The natural mother wants the whole thing to be hushed up - she doesn’t want the neighbours gossiping. In such cases it is ususal to say that the child died at birth.
03.48
Samuel is 5 months old and has lived here since he was born. All the babies manage do find a home eventually - demand is high - especially abroad.
3.58 - interviewer
Does anyone know where he’ll be going yet?
4.01 I/V Patricia Galvez, nurse
He hasn’t got any adoptive parents yet.
4.07 - interviewer
And where do most of these babies go?
4.10
I/V Patricia Galvez, nurse
To the USA.
His mother is young, single and poor. She already has six children, and then he came along too. What kind of a life do you think he would have had? I think it’s better for him that his mother gave him up for adoption.
4.36
That’s probably what his mother thought too when she brought him here. It all sounds so easy. But no-one can imagine what a mother goes through at a time like this, says this woman. She has already been through it..
4.46
When they came to fetch my daughter, I couldn’t stand waiting. I kept looking at my watch, and when it was finally over, I begged God for forgiveness
It’s not that I didn’t want her, but I did it becauseI* had to. I couldn’t have taken proper care of her. After she’d gone I didn’t eat for days, even when everyone was telling me I should. They just saw how sad I was, but I didn’t want to do anything anymore - I didn’t even want to get dressed.
5.17
Her daughter had gone forever. Maybe, she says, she will see her again someday. Maybe later, when she is an adult and wants to meet her real mother.
5.28
But I’m afraid of it - what if I still can’t cope with it after all these years? What if she rejects me because I gave her up?
5.45
Her daughter lives in England now. She doesn’t know where her unborn child will live later.
5.53
Most of the children are born on the outskirts of the city, where poverty is at ist worst. Here, it is becoming increasingly common for mothers to give up their children for adoption. But rumours have also been going round that babies are being kidnapped. In this settlement it is more than just a rumour.
6.12
One day, this woman’s daughter simply disappeared. Baby traffickers had found adoptive parents in the USA who had already paid for a child. They had to come up with the goods.
6.24
But her mother tracked her down and fought to get her back. First of all she had to prove that she was really the natural mother, and that the child hadn’t been neglected. It all began when Marlen was just 10 months old.
6.38
I/V Iris Borrayo
I had to go into hospital quite suddenly. We had just moved to another district, so I asked one of the new neighbours to look after the baby. I told her that I would of course give her some money for it. I had no other choice - I was barely conscious. When I came out of hospital, my daughter had disappeared. This woman had certain connections, and it wasn’t the first time she’d been involved in something like that.
7.09
The neighbour had been collaborating with a lawyer who arranged adoptions in return for a very good fee. Both of them have been prosecuted and Marlene is at home again.
7.20 - interviewer
Were you able to see your daughter throughout all of this?
7.26
I/V Iris Borrayo
Six months went by before I was allowed to see her. Then the lawyer sent me written permission saying that I could see her almost every day. There was a fierce legal battle - they wanted to get all the paperwork together as soon as possible so that they could take Marlene out of the country.
At the end, my lawyer even had to warn customs officials, so that she couldn’t be taken out of the country - it was very touch and go.
8.00
No-one knows exactly how many allegedly orphaned children have been given up for adoption. Which is why the demand for tighter laws and regulations is growing. Yet others say that the legal situation is not the problem.
8.15
Like this man - lawyer and former president of Guatemala
8.18
I/V Ramiro de Leon Carpio
The problem is the huge demand abroad for adoptive children. Whenever there is an opportunity to do good business, people will take it. For some lawyers and child dealers it is a huge business. But it is certainly illegal.
8.44
He says introducing official adoption tariffs
could ruin the market for adoption agents.
8.49
Ramiro de Leon Carpio
There really are thousands of abandoned children here, and we’re very glad that there are just as many couples from Europe, the States or Asia who come here and want to give the children a new start. Due to poverty and the guerilla war last year, it’s a chance that we can’t give them, unfortunately.
9.12
98% of all adopted children end up abroad. To protect adoptive parents from illegal baby deals, the American and Canadian embassies have introduced compulsory blood tests.This ensures that the natural mother has consented to giving her child up for adoption and exposes fraud. This woman was caught claiming to be the mother of a baby who, according to the blood test results, she wasn’t related to. In reality she is the mother of a six year old daughter. She didn’t go to prison because she confessed and gave the names of the traffickers.
9.48
I/V Elizabet Barrios
They told me to pretend I had just given birth - to walk very slowly and look as though I was still in some discomfort. The lawyer there asked me if I was the real mother, and I just said yes.
10.13
Now, she regrets the deal. Everyone had warned her about these people, but she simply didn’t believe that the baby trade mafia existed.
10.23
I/V Elizabet Barrios
People had said that children were being stolen. Most people in the area hid their children.
10.33 - interviewer
And didn’t it cross your mind that the child might have been stolen?
10.37
I/V Elizabet Barrios
No - I honestly never thought that. They told me that the baby’s mother was a prostitute and didn’t want her baby.
10.54 - interviewer
And you went along with it for a fee?
10.56
I/V Elizabet Barrios
I did it because I really needed the money. I didn’t have anything then, my husband had just died.
11.05
She got around 15 US dollars for her part in the deal. Not a great profit. It is said that babies change hands on the black market for around 3000 dollars. But due to the blood tests the dealers now avoid American and Canadian customers. In other embassies, including European ones, the DNA test is still not enshrined in law. Some adoptive parents have discovered a more reliable way of finding children - in homes. Homes for orphaned or abandoned children don’t make a profit from adoption. Madre Ines, a nun, runs one of these homes in Guatemala city. She tries to find adoptive parents for all of her charges. But it is not easy - most of the children are over two years old and much more difficlut to find families for.
11.55
The children are told that the camera team is from Europe and that they might find families who are looking for older children there too.
These children long for parents. But once they have found them, they face a long wait. Even the smallest of them understand the implications of the paperwork. Their papers have to be ready before they can be adopted, and everyone bombards Mother Ines with their questions.
12.20
I/V Madre Ines Ayau, in charge of the home
(to one boy) I’ve already got your papers.
( to other boys) - I haven’t got yours yet
But yours are ready. And yours. (grabs and kisses little girl) This little girl is going to Australia. We picked up her passport yesterday.
12.45
I/V Madre Ines Ayau
We normally have to go through 3-4 government agencies - and each authority takes 2-3 months. It should take less time really. But because so many adoptions are organised by private lawyers who pay bribes, they are dealt with first. We don’t pay because that would go against our principles. Which is why it all takes so long.
13.09
And do you think that the long wait holds a lot of people up?
13.12
Madre Ines Ayau
Of course. If you have to tell someone that the adoption process will take 9 months, then many choose a ‘quicker’ alternative. And in the meantime the children are growing up - it’s all time that they could be spending with an adoptive family.
13.28
Whenever visitors arrive, it could mean that one of the children will go to a new family. The ones who stay behind wonder why they haven’t been chosen.
13.40
This little girl has found a family. In a few months she will become American and move to Memphis Tennesee.
13.51
I/V Kerry Snead
Well then I met Gabi and it didn’t matter how old she was - honestly, none of that mattered. When I met her - I guess it’s sort of like when you meet your spouse. Here is this world of people - hundreds of thousands of people, and you come upon this one person and you know, and it doesn’t really matter about all the other details. That’s how it was with Gabi. We will have some real challenges when she gets to the States.School, language, homesickness. I’m nervous about - is she going to lay in bed at night missing Guatemala? But if love can ever fix anything, as dramatic as that might sound, if love can fix anything, then Gabi, and John and myself, and the rest of our family, we have it made, we have it made. Because if you could see what’s happening at home right now as it relates this little girl who none of them have met - none of them have met her with the exception of my husband you’d think we were having royalty gonna arrive any day..
15.09
Another child from the orphanage has found a real home. She is happy, although both of them have language problems. Gabi has asked the nun to teach her her first english sentence - I love you.
15.31
The story has a happy end - and there could be many more of those if more people were prepared to adopt older children.
Last scene 15.47
Credits:
Camera: Edgar Navarro
Editing: Romana Meslitzer