On hearing that Guatemala had put a moratorium on inter-country adoptions – meaning they would not allow any until further notice – a lady, who is herself a mother of adopted children, asked me in shock how the country could do such a thing: how could they leave all those poor children stuck there when there were families eager to adopt them? Like voluntourism, inter-country (or international) adoption is something that people tend to get involved in with the very best of intentions, but that has an unexpectedly large capacity for causing grief and trauma, and for damaging children.
Much like voluntourism, inter-country adoption started out as something done by a few people with a genuine wish to give a better life to children with no prospects, then turning into something that became popular, leading to the opening up of a market.
Continue reading “Illegal Adoption”