UN Commission in Guatemala Demands Explanation from US Senator http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/april/30/centralamerica11043002.htm

The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) publicly requested US Senator Mary Landrieu an explanation for her remarks on illegal adoptions here.According to a communiqué of the UN group, the congresswoman from Louisiana expressed disagreement with a report regarding criminal organizations devoted to illegal adoptions in Guatemala.The US senator travelled to Guatemala accompanying US State Department special consultant for child affairs Susan Jacobs.

The Commission refers to a report in Prensa Libre daily on April 26, according to which Landrieu said she did not agree with all the results presented by Cicig in late 2010.The Cicig report cites in detail irregularities in the process of adoption completed during the transition phase from the previous law to the current law, says the text.Cicig asks Landrieu to present before the Guatemalan society all the evidence supporting her rejection of the report and to explain her position regarding the numerous adoptions of children illegally taken away from their biological parents.

Cicig said its report was the result of information gathered by a group of experts, who examined for 18 months thousands of registers of the Attorney Generalâ�Ös Office and other organizations related to those processes.They also studied over 50 criminal investigations of the trafficking of persons for illegal adoption carried out by the Justice Ministry, detecting that over 60 percent of the adoption processes involved illegalities, including buying and selling minors, deception of their biological mothers and document forgery.Based on this study, Cicig determined that international adoption in Guatemala, instead of being a means to provide the vulnerable children with a family, has often become a mechanism to give these children to the highest bidder.