Guatemala's child-snatching plague

[snopes]

American couples are flocking to the hotels of Guatemala City, but not to see the country's ancient Mayan remains nor the capital's more limited modern charms. Instead they are flying south in droves in the hope of embracing a bouncing new addition to their families - a baby, priced at about $30,000.

There is no hiding the devotion and delight of the couples determined to give their new babies only the best. But the little-regulated Guatemalan adoption industry has also become a lucrative business for the country's lawyers and foster parents - and for the real mothers who are paid when they hand over their children.

Most alarmingly, there are reports of child-snatching rings operating in rural areas and "baby farming" by impoverished young women. In June, the United Nations urged Guatemala to suspend all adoptions in an effort to clamp down on what it called a "corrupt" trade, where lawyers pay mothers for newborn babies.

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