Mr. Alvaro Colom
President of the Republic
Sandra Torres
Nación First Lady's Office
Dr. Rafael Espada
Vice - President
Today we speak to you, with the certainty that the Creator guide in the hard work of leading our Guatemala. We know of his commitment to the poorest of this country and therefore come to you in our quality of being female, being poor and being victims of criminal violence that plagues our country, accompanied by Survivors Foundation, who has given us moral support, legal and psychological finding our daughters. Each one of us suffered the kidnapping of our girls, which were seized by violence on our side, for months we've touched the gates of the institutions to collaborate in the search for our daughters so they can return home, but these efforts have borne fruit.
Today we decided to start a hunger strike in protest at the way they're dealing with our children, by silence and complicity of the institutions that should protect them because the pain is so large that we feel we have removed part of our life, and this activity is a desperate action to end this pain and that our daughters return home.
They share a brief narrative of each case:
1. Esther Zulamitha Rivas Escobar:
On March 26, 2006 entered the shoe store, the first two dark-skinned
women who saw a pair of shoes, then left. An hour later a man entered,
who was tested some tennis and then asked for another pair, she was to
look inside the store room. Upon returning her had a firearm and
requested the money, tried to rape her and then locked in the bathroom.
When she escaped, she realized that her daughter Esther Zulamitha not
found, it is presumed that this man took her.
2. Arlene Escarleth López López:
On September 27, 2006 between 13:10 and 13:45 hours, a young woman came
to the house of Olga Angélica López López and used her name to her
mother, María Justa López López, asked to be given to the girl and to
take her to Olga Angélica, saying it was Olga's request.
3. Heidi Sarai Batz Par:
who was kidnapped on 4 April 2006 at about four p.m. in Prados de Villa
Hermosa, San Miguel Petapa, by a woman who approached her and started
to talk, gives her a soda in a plastic bag, a drink that numbed her,
and when she awoke the woman had already disappeared with the child.
But when a witness saw the child was taken by this person on a bus and
was able to identify where she went, so their identification was
achieved as yet is that person is free.
4. Angielyn Lisseth Hernández Rodríguez:
was abducted from her home on Monday November 3, 2006 at approximately
4 pm, when she was playing in the yard of her residence, on Monday 6
receives a call from an unknown woman, telephone number 66798519, who
informed her that her daughter is found on the main boulevard, 7 ave.
Residential 3-36 Riveras del Río of the Municipality Villa Canales.
According to information from neighborsthe girl was carried by a woman
who climbed to a taxi that was waiting.
All these cases have been reported at the time both the Police National Civil prosecution (where the file is open) and Office of Human Rights. After months of research and as both our research of the PNC and Public Ministry (MP) has been established that cases of our girls as other and other children who have recovered over the past 10 months, they were in the sold in the market of adoptions international.
Our struggle from our certainty that all children have the right to be reared and educated in the bosom of their own family.
Adopting contributes to the welfare of children who do not have protection and support of a family. This is not the case for our daughters, because they were snatched from a family that loves and protects them, bringing with it a great pain and suffering that leads us to the ultimate with consequences for the fate and take power again in our hands. We condemn the activities of all persons involved in networks trafficking in children for adoption of the market because they only see the profit and not the interests of children and families that are affecting, and even to condemn the institutions of the State that should protect them and protect the Guatemalan family, and otherwise they become complicit.
In this business, children given up for adoption are not the most in need but product of coercion, deceit and kidnapping as in of our daughters. Making the institution of adoption a market where selling and buying Guatemalan girls and boys, as a mere commodity.
The legitimate and legal process of adoption includes the implementation of the Law on Protection of Children and Adolescents-LPINA and established the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to prevail in both instruments in the best interests of the child. So far this international framework has breached in Guatemala, despite a law and the accession of Guatemala to the Hague Convention.
The performance of the functions of state institutions, must also concentrate on prosecution and punishment of the crime of "trafficking" as such, and in this sense, it requires a decisive part of Judiciary, the Public Ministry MP and the PNC. Likewise, the Attorney General's Office to perform its function of protection of children and ensure the legality and legitimacy of procedures for adoption.
In 1986, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration on Social and Legal Principles relating to the protection and welfare of children, with particular reference to the adoption and placement of home care, both nationally and internationally.
This statement establishes the prohibition of abduction or any other act leading to the unlawful placement of children and the importance of preventing that adoption will result in financial benefits for those involved in its management.
In 1989, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the convention Rights of the Child, which states that all measures concerning children, whether taken by public or private institutions, welfare, courts, administrative authorities or bodies legislation, a primary consideration is to serve the interest of the child. Since this convention recognizes that children must grow in the family, in happiness, love and understanding, to achieve their full and harmonious development.
Within these commitments made by Guatemala at international, our national legislation and its quality as a human loving and responsible parents have come to you with the following demands:
1. Allows us to review the records of adoption proceedings made during 2006, 2007 and so far in 2008 of the Attorney General's (PGN) Office.
2. Its incidence in that part of the National Adoptions, an investigation into the whereabouts of the girls who have identified in its files that have the characteristics of our daughters and to enable us to be present.
3. Being made to coordinate with relevant migration office to allow us to view the files to process passports children in adoptions since the period 2006 to present date.
4. The revocation by the PGN Attorney General's Office of the process of adopting a child Kimberly Azucena Ocheltree of which we copy and of those girls who we find that have the characteristics of our daughters and they have already been base a given up for adoption and are outside of Guatemala, based on anomalies in the procedure.
5. Ask the good offices of the U.S. Ambassador to test the DNA of the child Kimberly Azucena Ocheltree, which must be analyzed in Guatemala to Ms. Raquel Par, mother of Heide Par so she can see her in person and identify her. The same procedure should be carried out with the other minors.
Thereby making available our right to petition the Constitution of the Republic stipulates in Article 28 and access to information based on Article 30 of the Magna Carta.
Pending a positive response, we subscribe to you.
Olga López López
Mother
Raquel Par
Mother
Ana Escobar
Mother
Loyda Rodríguez
Mother
Norma Cruz
Director
Fundaciones Sobrevivientes
Guatemala, April 28, 2008.
