Casa Quivira Raided by Guatemalan Police

Amid the often bloody turmoil in Guatemala in this election year, a seemingly minor incident has loomed large for our family. This Monday, Guatemalan police raided Casa Quivira, the orphanage we adopted David from. Police allege the orphanage was stealing children from their biological parents to sell them to foreigners. The children, including those with medical conditions, have been ordered moved by gun-toting police officers to shelters, and all their legal and medical records have been confiscated pending an investigation. The raid was prompted by a neighbor's tip that foreigners have been leaving the orphanage with children on a daily basis.

Here's my take: There's nothing shady about Casa Quivira. It is far above the standards of child care facilities in Guatemala, both legally and in the quality of care they provide. This was our impression six years ago when we visited there to pick up David, and it's the impression of more recent visitors as well. In a country where the black marketing of children has been a problem for decades, Casa Quivira has been a model of integrity. Even after the raid, the Guatemalan attorney general's office said there was so far no evidence that the children had been stolen or their parents coerced into giving them up.

So what's going on? There's a paranoia in parts of Guatemala, fears that Guatemalan children are being stolen by foreigners. This is especially true in rural areas where foreign couples traveling with Guatemalan children have been harassed, even murdered. This paranoia is being exploited in this election year by vote-seeking politicians. These guys know that taking a seemingly firm stand against the trafficking of children carries political capital. Casa Quivira, which connects needy Guatemalan kids with foreign families, is a convenient target. Unfortunately, it's the wrong one.

So the kids are traumatized, and their already lengthy adoption processes will take even longer. Some may be lost in the system forever and never find a home, ending up, as too many poor Guatemalan kids do, scavenging the city dump near Guatemala City. Casa Quivira and the families with whom they place children are not the biggest losers here.