Illegal Guatemalan foster home raid finds 46 babies
Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:08PM By Mica Rosenberg
ANTIGUA, Guatemala (Reuters)
Guatemalan police found 46 children, somejust 3 days old, in an illegal foster home in the tourist city of Antigua on Saturday, the latest scandal for the country'scorruption-riddled adoption system.
Carlos Azurdia, an official from the country's adoption regulator, said two women were arrested in the raid. "There are newborns and children up to three-year-olds," Azurdia said. "None of them had the proper paperwork to be given up for adoption."
Guatemala has the highest per-capita adoption rate in the world, a lucrative business for private lawyers who run the trade and aresometimes accused of forging papers or paying mothers to sell their children. Close to 5,000 babies and children were adopted from the small Central American nation last year. Adoptive parents say some lawyers charge upto $40,000 to handle adoptions....
For remaining article: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1126522820070812
