IN PERU, ANXIETIES OVER ADOPTION

Washington Post

SOME ACCUSED OF 'BABY SELLING' TO EXPLOIT AMERICAN MARKET

Author: Eugene Robinson; Washington Post Foreign Service

Dateline: LIMA, PERU

They sat in a sparse second-floor room at the heavily guarded U.S.

Consulate here one recent afternoon, couples from places like suburban Detroit cradling tiny infants from the shantytowns and mountain villages of Peru.

While the babies bawled and cooed, a consular official gave the new parents advice on avoiding cholera, rebel guerrillas and garden-variety urban thugs.

Peru rapidly has become one of the most popular destinations for U.S. citizens seeking to adopt foreign-born children, ranking behind only Romania and South Korea last year in the number of adoptions arranged. Europeans, especially Italians, also have flocked to Peru for its short waiting lists and its relatively liberal -- if baroque -- adoption laws.

But foreign adoption is an emotional issue in this impoverished country of 22 million. Some commentators have described it as a painful acknowledgement that the nation cannot adequately care for its own children, its own future.

The arrest of a U.S. citizen here on charges of trafficking in babies last week has sparked a heated debate over adoption ethics, procedures, and how best to protect the interests of the children within a system highly vulnerable to abuse.

Most Peruvian adoptions appear to be carried out properly, but the local press has focused on several reported instances of what amounts to baby-selling. A few mothers have complained that their children were kidnapped or that they were duped into giving up their babies. Judges have been implicated in schemes to extort bribes in exchange for moving adoption paperwork along.

More bizarre are the fantastic and wholly unsubstantiated rumors that periodically arise about Peruvian infants being taken to the United States or Europe to be killed as a source of body parts for transplants. That grisly idea assumed such currency last year that U.S. officials arranged a teleconference to try to dispel it. One woman currently here to adopt a child said a taxi driver turned to her the other day and pleaded, with apparent sincerity, "Please don't kill the baby."

A total of 639 Peruvian children were adopted by U.S. citizens during the year ending last Sept. 30, according to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service figures. That was almost double the previous year's figure, but consular officials say the flow of would-be parents appears to have diminished somewhat in recent weeks, perhaps because of Peru's cholera epidemic and recent attacks on U.S. interests by Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.

Still, along the quiet sidewalks of the upscale Miraflores district, it is common to see U.S. or European couples wheeling Peruvian babies in brand-new strollers. Peruvian laws require prospective parents to have local custody of a child for up to two months before the adoption can become final, meaning that adopting parents must remain in Peru for some time or travel repeatedly to the country.

Adopting a child here usually costs between $10,000 and $15,000, but some couples have ended up paying much more. U.S. Consul General Ginny Carson Young said Peruvian laws allow single-parent adoptions and provide no age limit for adoptive parents.

Beset by economic crisis and political violence, Peru has no shortage of candidates for adoption. "There are so many unwanted children in this country that one would not have to resort to kidnapping or coercion," Young said. "We're often talking about the eighth child in a family with a $200 monthly income. These women willingly -- almost gratefully -- give up their children."

But the Peruvian judicial system, through which adoptions must pass, is "easily abused," Young noted. The courts are clogged and inefficient, plagued by long delays. Bribery is common.

The tenor of the debate over adoption changed Feb. 24 when police arrested James P. Gagel, a U.S. lawyer who lives in Lima, on charges of trafficking in children -- an allegation he categorically denies. Gagel, 36, has remained in custody while an investigating judge concludes a lengthy series of interviews and authorities debate whether to transfer him to prison.

Media coverage of Gagel's arrest has been sensational, with the tabloid press reporting wild accusations of his supposed involvement in hundreds of shady adoptions. Most of the allegations in the press involve the premise that Gagel somehow tricked, coerced or paid ignorant young mothers into giving up their children.

Gagel, who came to Peru on a Fulbright grant in 1989, told reporters last week that he has arranged 54 adoptions, all of them legitimate. His lawyers say he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

"These are the most absurd charges I've ever heard," Gagel told the newsweekly Si.

According to local news reports, police claimed to have found in Gagel's office a quantity of official stationery, stamps and seals from various provincial jurisdictions, the suggestion being that he had tried to falsify documents. It is unclear whether this alleged evidence will figure in any formal charges.

A spokeswoman for Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children, an 84-year-old, nonprofit adoption agency in New York, said the agency has used Gagel as a case coordinator for 13 adoptions since June 1990 with no indication of irregularities.pain and the strong feelings that are involved in surrendering a child," Van Praagh said. "That's not the kind of thing that can be pretended. For these reasons, we don't feel any children were stolen."

Several other prominent adoption agencies around the country also used Gagel as a local contact, Van Praagh said in a telephone interview.

One American parent who adopted a Peruvian child in the past year with Gagel's assistance said Gagel "insisted on 100 percent honesty. . . . There was no possiblity of bribery or anything else shady. In fact, he was strongly against it. He did it by the book."

Larry O'Mallon, a New Jersey dentist who described himself as Gagel's closest friend, said by telephone that he is certain Gagel is innocent. He said he has been in touch with numerous adoptive parents who dealt with Gagel and would like to testify to his honesty, but they are afraid to come forward for fear that Peruvian authorities will try to take the children back.

"Honestly, these people are really torn," O'Mallon said. "They want to do something, but they're afraid. Meanwhile, Jim sits down there in jail with a questionable future."

The American parents' fears appear to be irrational. No Peruvian official has raised the issue of trying to recover any children, and it is doubtful that there would be any basis for doing so.

Some officials say that while abuses doubtless occur, adoption is generally a good option for impoverished young mothers who have nowhere else to turn. No one doubts that the adopted children grow up amid comforts and advantages they could never have dreamed of in Peru.

"I think we're all drowning in a glass of water with this controversy about adoption," said legislator Lourdes Flores Nano, a leading advocate on family issues. "What is a viable solution for many children, we're turning into a big deal. In the end, this won't help anyone."

But in the meantime, Gagel's arrest has sent a chill through the local adoption process. "I understand that the judges and the legal officials dealing with adoptions are already slowing down their processing and are afraid to sign anything," said Young, the U.S. consul. "If I were a judge and had an adoption case in front of me, I'd think long and hard."

"Some of these people have never been outside the United States before," said Young. "Yet they're prepared to spend three months in Lima, with all its problems, even though they don't speak the language, they can't find the things they want to buy, the things they're accustomed to. In spite of all that, they're pretty cheerful about it."

The Rev. Tom Nibbe, pastor of the Union Church here, holds a weekly support-group meeting for foreign parents trying to wend their way through the maddening legalities of Peruvian adoption. The parents swap tales of misplaced documents, rude officials and endless waits in courthouse hallways.

"Emotionally, this has got to be one of the hardest things you could ever do," Nibbe said.

One Michigan woman who attended the consulate's orientation session said she and her husband had wanted to adopt a baby from Romania, but when the Romanian government called a halt to foreign adoptions they turned to Peru.

"We debated a lot" because of the State Department travel advisory counseling against unnecessary travel to Peru, she said. "But since we've been here we've had no problem." The couple had been in Peru for three days, and already had taken custody of a 3-month-old girl.

Like other couples interviewed, they declined to give their names. "We can't," the husband said, looking at the child they had already begun to consider their own. "We just can't.