European Parliament resolution on Guatemala
Date: 2005-07-07
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: Guatemala, child, child protection, human rights, international adoption, organised crime, trafficking in human beings

C 157 E/494

Thursday 7 July 2005

P6_TA(2005)0304

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

6.7.2006

Trafficking in children in Guatemala

European Parliament resolution on Guatemala

The European Parliament,

— having regard to its earlier resolutions on Guatemala, in particular that of 10 April 2003 (1),

— having regard to its firm and permanent commitment to the peace process and to human rights in

Guatemala,

— having regard to the Hague Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Cooperation in
respect of Intercountry Adoption, adopted in the framework of the Hague Conference on Private Inter-
national Law,

— having regard to the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Governments of Guatemala and

Mexico to address the crossborder trafficking issues that plague the region,

— having regard to the Final Act of the XVIIth European Union/Latin America Interparliamentary Con-

ference, which took place in Lima from 14 to 16 June 2005,

— having regard to Rule 115(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. having regard to the UN special rapporteur's report on the sale and trafficking of children, which states
that Guatemala's laws on adoption are among the least stringent in the region, while trafficking in
children is not even classified as a crime,

B. whereas, according to the Office of the Counsel for Human Rights, the abuses occurring in Guatemala
include forced or surrogate pregnancies, removal of children from their real mothers, substitution of
documents, alteration of public records, and the existence of clandestine ‘nurseries’; whereas abuses are
also committed by those authorising adoptions, while an increasing number of international adoption
agencies are offering children for sale,

C. whereas Guatemala is a source, transit and destination country for women and children from Guate-
mala and other Central American countries who are trafficked for purposes of sexual and labour
exploitation,

D. whereas in 2004, according to official records, 527 women were murdered, 81 % of them in deaths

involving firearms,

E. whereas, after the departure of the UN mission to Guatemala (Minugua) and almost ten years since the
signature of the peace agreements, problems remain in the areas of human rights, indigenous peoples'
rights and agrarian conflicts, with violent expulsions which have left several people dead and many
others wounded,

F. whereas no progress is being made on impunity, and the agreement to set up the Commission to
investigate illegal groups and clandestine security organisations (Ciciacs) is still in need of the auth-
orities' support,

G. whereas legal personnel and members of state monitoring bodies are still being murdered, and, accord-
ing to recent reports, between January and May 2005 there were 76 attacks on human rights activists,
the total number of attacks or threats against such activists over the first year of the present parlia-
mentary term being 122,

H. whereas the Commission's background note for the preparation of the strategic document for Guate-
mala for 2007-2013 admits that 56 % of the population are living in poverty and 22 % in extreme
poverty, three-quarters of those affected being members of the indigenous communities,

1.
Condemns trafficking in children, the existence of an organised crime network with international
connections engaging in the kidnapping of children, the substitution of documents, the alteration of public
records, and the operation of clandestine ‘nurseries’; also condemns the abuses relating to documents auth-
orising adoptions, as well as the growing number of international adoption agencies offering children for
sale;

(1) OJ C 64 E, 12.3.2004, p. 609.

6.7.2006

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 157 E/495

Thursday 7 July 2005

2.

Stresses that adoptions should only be carried by governmental bodies and non-profit organisations;

3.
Calls on Guatemala to enact specific legislation on adoptions, to apply the Hague Convention on
Intercountry Adoption, and to adopt suitable measures to prevent profiteering from international adoptions;

Urges the Public Prosecutor's Office to take out penal proceedings against the criminal networks

4.
trafficking in children;

Calls for the launching of a global plan of priority actions aimed at children and adolescents in Latin

5.
America, in line with Unicef measures;

Calls on the Government of Guatemala to take the necessary measures to ensure that murders of

6.
women no longer go unpunished, and to take a proactive stand on women's rights;

7.
Calls on the government of Guatemala to support the actions of the Office of the Counsel for Human
Rights, recognise the legitimacy of the work of human rights activists and ensure their protection, and
investigate the recent cases of attacks on the headquarters of social organisations;

8. Welcomes President Berger's declarations regarding abolition of the death penalty, recalling that there
are currently 35 persons on death row, and calls on the Guatemalan Congress to undertake the reforms
needed to remove capital punishment from the national legal system; calls for measures to be taken against
lynchings;

9. Welcomes the initiative of the Government of Guatemala in promoting the establishment of the Office
of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and congratulates the Government and Congress on their
ratification of the corresponding Convention;

10.
Calls on all authorities to cooperate as closely as possible with that Office, so as to enable it to fully
implement its observation and advice mission; calls on the Commission to provide economic and political
support to facilitate the Office's full implementation of its mandate;

11.
Repeats its recommendation to the Commission, as made in its resolution of 10 April 2003, that the
EU's future strategy for Guatemala for 2007-2013 should include social cohesion, the right to food, rural
development and reform of the system of landholding and land use, as priority areas for future EU coop-
eration policy; this policy should also lay stress on eliminating illegal adoptions, firm support for human
rights, ending impunity, respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, and promotion and protection of
women's rights and the rights of the child;

12.
Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the UN Secretary-
General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Government and Parliament of Guatemala.

P6_TA(2005)0305

Human rights in Ethiopia

European Parliament resolution on the human rights situation in Ethiopia

The European Parliament,

— having regard to its previous resolutions on Ethiopia,

— having regard to Rule 115(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. having regard to the violent repression of protest demonstrations on 8 June 2005 following the post-
ponement of the announcement of the final results of the general elections on 15 May 2005, which left
36 dead, more than 100 injured and led to thousands of arrests,

B. whereas, under Ethiopian law, any arrested person must be brought before a court within 48 hours,

C. whereas up until then the electoral process had not seen any major incidents, and the Ethiopian popu-
lation's faith in democracy had been demonstrated by the participation of around 90 % of the electorate
in the vote on 15 May 2005,