[carrik1]

Ok....this is what I just received from my agency. Please don't attack me......I am seriously freaking out NOW!Hi there clients--

It was reported to me today (by ATTNY NAME HERE) who was at PGN in connection with birthmother interviews (being conducted by PGN and CNA staff) that birthmothers are being offered money to cancel their adoptions:

Specifically, if a birthmother cancels her pending adoption and takes back her child, she will receive (at least this is the promise) Q500 ( which is approximately $70 US ) per month until the child turns 18 years of age.

This is quite shocking, taking into account that

the only role that CNA was supposed to have in old adoptions was to register and certify them as such
the role of PGN, under the old adoption law, was to ascertain that in every case that all Guatemalan and international norms with regard to child protection had been met
under the new adoption law, old cases that were properly registered and certified as such were supposed to be handled completely as old cases
PGN never had the role of bribing birthmothers to cancel their adoptions
therefore, this is hardly the time for PGN to take on that role
moreover, since CNA apparently does not even have enough money to take care of children entering orphanages in 2008, nor enough money to fully carry out its administrative mandate, how in the world does it plan to fund these promises to birthmothers ?
This ugly turn of events requires strong action, and it also requires that the word be spread rapidly. It would make me happy to see the contents of this email disseminated via word of mouth from one family to another, but more importantly, publicized on the various e-lists and adoption blogs and Guatemala adoption news websites that you all read.

If enough families bring this to the attention of their agencies, and if enough agencies alert their Guatemalan facilitators (some of whom probably do not know about this), maybe there will be a groundswell of indignation that will lead to telephone calls and emails to our State Department, to the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington and to the offices of President Colom and the PGN in Guatemala City.

Indeed, perhaps some of the agencies potentially affected will even see fit to send some money to Guatemala to launch a legal attack ( such as the filing of an amparo ) on this strange method of stopping adoptions.