Guatemala court orders US couple to return child
A Guatemalan judge has ordered a US couple return their adopted daughter to her birth mother in Guatemala.Judge Angelica Noemi Tellez Hernandez ruled in favor of the mother, who is represented by the human rights group Survivors' Foundation.
Kidnap
It is alleged that the girl was kidnapped in 2006 by a child trafficking ring and put up for adoption, she was subsequently taken out of the country two years later under a new name.
Court order
The court ordered that if the girl is not returned within two months, Guatemalan authorities should solicit help locating the girl from Interpol, the international police organisation. Nine Guatemalans, including a judge, have been charged in the case.
The Survivors' Foundation doesn't allege the American couple knew the girl had been kidnapped. The court identified the couple as Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City.
Adoption fraud
Guatemala's adoption system once sent more than 4,000 children every year to the United States. However, adoptions were suspended in 2007 amid widespread claims of kidnapping and fraud by suspect adoption brokers. Guatemala started a small, reformed program of international adoptions later but the United States has declined to participate.
Court first
This is apparently the first time that a court in Guatemala has ordered the return of a child on the basis that the adoption was fraudulent.
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