Recently the Guatemalan Congress approved sweeping changes to the international adoption system in their country. The bill - as passed - had no provision for grandfathering current cases, and (without such a grandfather clause) would certainly interfere with many adoptions that have already begun. The bill is now in committee, and amendments are being proposed, […]

Two days ago I posted about an adoption interview/debate on Al Jazeera's English network. This post is about the second half of that interview with Tom DiFilipo, President and CEO of the Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS), and Louise Melville, a Care and Protection Adviser for Save The Children. You can watch the […]

The English wing of the Arab news network Al Jazeera produced a piece last month about international adoption on their "Inside Story" program: "Guatemala Adoption Scandal" aired on 13 August 2007. The program featured two interviewees who went head-to-head on inter-country adoption: Tom DiFilipo, President and CEO of the Joint Council on International Children's Services […]

One of the ways that Carolina Hope seeks homes for orphans from Guatemala is through photolisting - that is, placing an orphan's photo and name (along with a few other pieces of information) on our website and at another photolisting website, RainbowKids.com. I'll post more about photolisting at some other time (it's a controversial practice), […]

The Joint Council on International Children's Services has issued the following notice about the second DNA test now being required for children adopted from Guatemala. As the notice states, the new requirement will be implemented for cases submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala on or after August 6, 2007. This notice answers some of […]

[This post was updated August 2, 2007. The update appears at the end of the original text.] The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City is introducing a second DNA test, this one to be done before a visa will be issued to the adopted child. This child's DNA sample will be sent to the U.S. lab […]