Illegal Baby Trade Flourishing in Guatemala

World Report

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ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: A decade ago, many Western couples who were desperate to adopt a baby headed to Romania. Now, one of the most popular destinations for those hoping to be parents is the Central American country of Guatemala, but the high price that a healthy infant commands sometimes leads unscrupulous adoption agencies to steal children from unsuspecting parents.

Austria's ORF traveled to Guatemala to talk with both victims and suspects.

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KATINKA NOWOTNY, ORF CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These children are waiting, their parents put up their child for adoption voluntarily, but that is not always the case in Guatemala. Many babies are stolen and sold to families in the United States or Europe. Some years ago, Iris had her 10-month-old baby girl stolen by a neighbor.

, MOTHER (through translator): I had to go to the hospital, and when I came back my daughter, who I had left with a neighbor, was gone.

NOWOTNY: The neighbor had already sold the child to a family in the United States, but Iris was lucky and could get her daughter back before she left the country.

Elizabeth participated in baby theft herself. She posed as a false mother for a boy who was not her son.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They told me I should behave as if I had just given birth, I should walk slowly and so on, then the lawyer asked me if I was the mother of this child, and I just simply said yes, it was so easy.

NOWOTNY: Did she ever think about the grief of the mother?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I did it because I really needed the money, I had nothing, my husband had just died.

NOWOTNY: Only the American and Canadian embassy require blood tests to make sure no stolen babies are put up for adoption. European countries don't have these tests.

Gabby was adopted legally, she was already 6 when she found a new home in America.

KERRY SNEAD, ADOPTIVE MOTHER: Here is this world of people, hundreds of thousands of people, and you come upon this one person, and you know, and it doesn't really matter about all the other details, that's how it was with Gabby.

NOWOTNY: It is not through words that the two of them found each other, but Gabby's learning fast, "I love you" is her first English sentence.

SNEAD: I love you too.

NOWOTNY: This story has a happy end; there could be many more especially if families were only willing to adopt all the children.

Katinka Nowotny with ORF (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for the CNN WORLD REPORT.

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