[Stop-traffic] News/Guatemala: Adoptions under fire in Guatemala

[Melanie Orhant]

Adoptions under fire in Guatemala
By Letta Tayler
Newsday, October 26, 2003
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-woguat1026,0,4309342.story

Excerpt:

GUATEMALA CITY -- Alone and seven months pregnant, teenager Carolina
Mendoza Velasquez thought she had found guardian angels when a
Guatemala City couple hired her as a live-in maid and said she could
continue working for them after she gave birth.

But the day after Mendoza delivered Luís Enrique in May, she said,
the couple locked her inside a Guatemala City clinic, wrenched her
newborn son from her arms, and forced her to sign papers giving him
up for adoption.

"They said my baby would go to a family in the United States and have
a better life," recalled Mendoza, 17. "When I told them I wanted to
keep him, they said, 'If you don't sign, we'll kill you.'"