Baby-snatching in Guatemala

Anastasia Moloney has a depressing story on Baby-snatching for illegal adoption hits the headlines in Guatemala. Some babies are purchased. Others are stolen from hospitals after mothers have been drugged and/or hospital staff paid off. Finally, many other babies are stolen from rural families who are believed do not have the financial resources to pursue kidnappings of children.

Some of the children are sold into adoption. Others might be used for organ trafficking. And more are sold into a life of pornography and prostitution. Verifiable numbers are hard to come by but it looks like trafficking in babies and children has been reduced since CICIG was put into place in 2007, international adoptions were banned in 2008, and the Alba-Keneth Alert System was established in 2010. The practice hasn't stopped and is still a pressing concern as Guatemala remains a prime country for organized crime in everything imaginable including the trafficking of humans, exotic animals, drugs, and weapons.

Child trafficking in Guatemala is also fuelled by weak governance, high levels of impunity and widespread corruption, rights groups say.

“It’s not only the failure of the police but the immigration authorities too. Police are poorly paid in Guatemala, not much more than the minimum wage, which makes them easy targets to be corrupted by criminals,” Baten said.

Guatemala’s lax and porous borders – the country shares borders with Honduras, Belize, El Salvador and Mexico – also provide a fertile breeding ground for child trafficking.

My impression is that Guatemala has undertaken a number of significant reforms to tackle corruption and impunity and to strengthen government institutions over the last few years. Authorities can investigate, solve and prosecute illegal activity much better today than they could a few years ago. The number of homicides has decreased significantly but it's harder to measure a significant decrease in other crimes or an increase in citizen security.

While I wasn't the biggest fan of Alvaro Colom, I thought that he had righted the ship and provided his successor with the opportunity to build on some of his administration's successes (See here and here). Otto Perez Molina's first year in office was a mixed bag and his second full year looks, unfortunately, to have been a step back.