Spanish/Nat
Baby-smuggling rings operating in
Bolivia are arranging the illegal adoption of hundreds of children to people abroad.
The lucrative business is facilitated by the fact that many babies in Bolivia are not registered at birth.
A lack of legal documentation means the official adoption process can be by-passed relatively easily.
Bolivia's orphanages are testimony to its battered economy and over-burdened welfare system.
According to a recent report by the social services, thousands of babies are abandoned every year by poverty-stricken parents struggling to live on meagre incomes.
These abandoned babies are the lucky ones.
Cared for by full-time nurses and health workers they have a future ahead of them.
Others are not so lucky - the social services are unable keep track of all abandoned children.
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"When a child has been abandoned - that is, left outdoors on trash cans, on the streets, our outside shelters - the disciplinary team at each shelter has to make sure that an investigation takes place before the three-month deadline."
SUPER CAPTION: Lilian
Suarez,
Head of
Social Services Department
Some children in the care of the authorities are adopted by families overseas.
There are over 35 regulated international adoption agencies here, dealing with applications from around the world.
On average, it takes two years for a foreign couple to legally adopt a Bolivian child.
But many more conduct the business of child adoption outside the parameters of the law.
Illegal adoption does occur, carried out by children's natural parents - who do not want their children - and baby-smuggling rings.
And the practice is made easier by a lack of documentation in the country.
Recent reports suggest that that as many as one (m) million children born in Bolivia do not have birth certificates.
For these unregistered children, illegal adoption is a constant threat.
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"
We can hardly get statistics on the children who leave, on the children who are adopted, of the children that are used in trafficking because we don't really have a guarantee that children born in Bolivia are registered and identified."
SUPER CAPTION:
Wilma Velasco Aguilar,
Director of
International Children's
Defence
A law was passed in
1992, protecting children and their families from illegal adoption, but it is difficult to enforce.
The lack of legal documents makes it impossible to know how many children have left the country through adoption.
Investigations can lead to worldwide searches for children who have been illegally smuggled out of the country.
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"There are between 30 to 40 cases a month we deal with in this court, ranging from adoptions, illegal care, corruption and kidnapping of minors and job exploitations."
SUPER CAPTION: Latzy Ayaviri,
Juvenile Court Judge
Some children are sold to work in people's houses as maids or servants.
In more extreme cases others are sold into modern-day slave labour, or poorly paid jobs where the natural parents collect the meagre wages.
With the
Bolivian economy showing no
sign of recovery, there is no end in sight for this dark industry.
Desperate economic circumstances are leading to an increase in the black market adoption business, with a whole generation of unwanted babies growing up without love or a real home.
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- published: 21 Jul 2015
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