Guatemala: Stolen Girl Tied to Adoption
Adoption officials said DNA tests indicated that a Guatemalan baby reported stolen from her mother was being adopted by an American couple. Jaime Tecu, director of a team of experts reviewing all pending Guatemalan adoptions, said the test results represented the first time officials had directly linked a baby reported stolen by its mother to the country’s fraud-plagued adoption system. The authorities have long said that children were stolen or bought before thousands of pending adoptions were frozen in May.
The child’s mother, Ana Escobar, said armed men locked her in a closet in March 2007 at the family’s shoe store north of Guatemala City and took the 6-month-old. She spent months searching hospitals and orphanages.
