Mon, Nov 24, 2008 page7

• FEATURE : To save adopted girl, US couple gives her up

  ‘SO CRAZY’ The Hemsleys had many reasons to be suspicious. The final straw was a doctor’s statement about a DNA sample that simply could not have taken place

  • AP
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  Jennifer and Todd Hemsley had to give up their child to save her.

  Like thousands of other would-be parents, the California couple made a US$15,500 down payment to a US agency that guaranteed quick, hassle-free adoptions of Guatemalan babies. And like the others, they were caught in a bureaucratic limbo after Guatemala began cracking down on systemic fraud last year.

  Many Americans with pending adoptions lobbied hard for quick approval of their cases, trying to bypass a new system designed to prevent identity fraud and the sale or even theft of children to feed Guatemala’s US$100 million adoption business.

  But Jennifer Hemsley did what Guatemala’s National Adoptions Council says no other American has done this year: She refused to look the other way when she suspected her would-be daughter’s identity and DNA samples were faked.

  She halted the adoption of Maria Eugenia Cua Yax, whom the couple named Hazel. And she stayed in Guatemala for months, spending thousands of dollars, until she could safely deliver the girl into state custody.

  Her decision could mean the Hemsleys — Jennifer is a freelance designer and Todd creates visual effects in the film industry — may never be able to adopt the little girl they nicknamed la boca, or mouth in Spanish.

  “It’s so crazy. None of this makes any sense,” Hemsley said. “I miss her deeply. There are no words.”

  But she says it was the only thing she could have done, morally.

  “It wasn’t even a choice. We did what I hope any parent would do: put their child first,” she said.

  The Hemsleys say they had many reasons for suspicion. But the final straw was a doctor’s statement that said DNA samples were taken from the baby and birth mother on a date when Hazel was with Jennifer Hemsley. She said her Guatemalan attorney told her: “Don’t worry about it, you want the adoption to go through, don’t you?”

  If all it takes is a doctor’s signature to hide a switch in DNA, it would challenge the bedrock evidence on which the US embassy has depended to guarantee the legitimacy of thousands of Guatemalan adoptions over the past 10 years. Doctors’ statements are routinely accepted on faith by the US embassy, Guatemalan authorities and adoptive American parents.

  Neither country has the appetite for challenging already-approved adoptions. But Hemsley says anyone who has doubts about an adopted baby’s true identity should know that the Guatemalan DNA evidence might be worthless.

  Guatemala’s quick adoptions made the nation of 13 million the world’s second-largest source of babies to the US after China. But last year the industry was closed down, starting with an August last year raid on what had been considered one of the country’s most reputable adoption agencies.

  Voluminous fraud has been exposed since then — false paperwork, fake birth certificates, women coerced into giving up their child and baby theft. At least 25 cases resulted in criminal charges against doctors, lawyers, mothers and civil registrars.

  Thousands of adoptions, including that of the Hemsleys, were put on hold until this year, when the newly formed National Adoptions Council began requiring birth mothers to personally verify they still wanted to give up their children. Of 3,032 pending cases, nearly 1,000 were dismissed because no birth mother showed up.

  Prosecutors suspect many of the babies in these cases never existed — that Guatemalan baby brokers registered false identities with the council in hopes of matching them later to babies obtained through fraud.

  Understaffed and with few resources, the adoptions council ruled out new DNA tests as too costly and time-consuming. All but a few hundred cases have been pushed through in the months since.

  “The ramifications are immense,” Hemsley said. “How many children adopted by US families may have had DNA falsifications such as this and the US adopting family is unknowing of the fraud?”

  Prompted by the Hemsleys, Guatemalan investigators are trying to determine Hazel’s true identity and have opened a criminal investigation into the people who vouched for her paperwork — from the US adoption agency to Guatemalan notaries, foster parents, a doctor and the laboratory that said it collected the girl’s DNA.

  Jaime Tecu, a former prosecutor who now leads investigations for the adoptions council, praised Jennifer Hemsley.

  “This makes me believe that there are people who still hold ethical values,” he said. “She could have easily ignored her suspicions and gone ahead with the paperwork; instead she decided to risk the adoption to do what she believes was right.”

  In an earlier case of switched DNA, Esther Sulamita, a girl stolen at gunpoint and given a false identity, was recognized and recovered by her birth mother in July just before an unknowing Indiana couple could adopt her.

  Dr Aida Gutierrez handled the DNA for both Hazel and Esther Sulamita. Now under investigation for allegedly forging birth documents, she told prosecutors she followed established procedures.

  The problem could be solved by improving the chain of custody over DNA evidence — for example, by requiring new mother-and-child saliva samples taken under the supervision of a government authority that would send it directly to US labs for testing.

  But the embassy still says it must depend on the ethics of the Guatemalan doctors involved.
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