Neighboring Honduras allowed an annual average of only 45 adoptions to the United States between 1994 and 1999. The flow of Guatemalan children is due partly to economic misery there. An estimated 80 percent of the Guatemalan population lives in poverty and 40 percent is illiterate. A related factor is Guatemala s birth rate, Central America s highest. The Catholic Church campaigns vigorously to keep abortion illegal and contraceptives inaccessible.
Many teenage women migrate from rural areas to Guatemala City to look for work.
In the capital, some get pregnant, feel compelled to carry the fetus to term, and decide they can t return home with the illegitimate child. The demand for Guatemalan babies, meanwhile, has increased sharply as other Latin American countries have clamped down on their adoption industries. The adopting family pays thousands more for adoption agency fees, travel, food, lodging and, often, the birthmother s expenses. All the paperwork is handled by an attorney, often the person representing the biological parents. The only Guatemalan governmental roles are a review of the documents by the attorney general s office, and a social worker s report on the biological and adoptive parents.