Adoptive parents hoping to adopt a child in Guatemala are about to find that doing so will get harder. According to this article, Guatemala provides the most babies for adoption in the Western Hemisphere, with one in 100 ending up as an adopted American. In most of the cases the ‘parents’ use notaries as brokers to go through the adoption process in Guatemala. They recruit the birth mothers, handle the paperwork and finish the job in about half the time as elsewhere. Some say that this may lead to corruption using the term ‘baby farm’ to the state. While others are of the view that it may help the poor mothers in giving their children better lives. Guatemala ranks third behind China and Russia in foreign adoptions by Americans. The average Guatemalan adoption costs as much as $30,000.
