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UN experts link Guatemala's Attorney General to a 1980s illegal adoption ring involving 80 stolen Indigenous children, demanding an immediate investigation.

United Nations experts have called for an immediate investigation into Guatemala’s Attorney General, Maria Consuelo Porras, linking her to a dark network of illegal adoptions that stripped Indigenous children from their families during the 1980s.
In a damning revelation that has sent shockwaves through Latin America, UN human rights experts have implicated Guatemala's sitting Attorney General in a historic child trafficking ring.The allegations center on the "Hogar Temporal Elisa Martínez," an orphanage directed by Porras in 1982. It is here, experts claim, that at least 80 Indigenous children—captured and forcibly disappeared during the country's brutal civil war—were processed for illegal international adoption.
The timing of these accusations is explosive. Porras, already sanctioned by the US and EU for corruption, is currently fighting for her political survival, having just failed in her bid for a seat on the Constitutional Court. Now, her past as a "legal guardian" to stolen children threatens to dismantle her remaining authority.
This scandal unearths a painful chapter of history where children were treated as commodities. The UN report details how fraud, coercion, and the falsification of documents were used to sever biological ties, effectively selling children to unsuspecting families in the West. For Kenyans, this story strikes a nerve, echoing local concerns about the integrity of foster care and adoption systems.
The commodification of vulnerable children is not unique to Guatemala. As Kenya continues to refine its own child protection laws, the Porras case serves as a grim testament to what happens when oversight fails. The "best interests of the child" can only be guaranteed when the guardians themselves are beyond reproach.
"Mothers affected by these illegal adoptions have reportedly not received adequate recognition or reparations," the UN experts noted. Justice, it seems, has been delayed for over 40 years.
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