The National Adoption System and Child Protection in Guatemala: Looking Back and Examining the Today

Abstract

This article discusses the evolution of adoption policy and practices in Guatemala from the 1990s to 2021. The authors synthesized own research and analyzed adoption scholarship and reports and organized that history in three distinct periods: (1) conflict years (1966–1996) when mostly Guatemalan military families and associates adopted stolen children, (2) post-conflict and millennium adoption years (1997-2007) when the commercialization of children and illicit adoptions surged, and (3) reform years (2008 to date) when new adoption regulations and institutions were established. The article concludes that Guatemalan regulations aligned with international conventions improved domestic adoption, but gaps remain within the adoption and child protection system.

Keywords:

• Intercountry adoption
• national adoption
• child-rights conventions
• Guatemala

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to Rudy Zepeda, Coordinator of Social Communication in the Consejo Nacional de Adopción (National Council of Adoption, CNA), for providing updated information regarding the CNA work, and sal ryman, PhD student in the Joint North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and University of North Carolina at Greensboro Social Work Programs, for editing this manuscript.