Raid #2

Anyone who knows me, knows i am livid. Again, Mariela's home has been raided. I cannot believe it. There are not enough people or resources to process these adoption cases, yet they find the time and energy to send this many people to a children's home. A well-respected and wonderful children's home that provides for many children each and every day while we are unable to finish our adoption processes. And those that cannot be adopted, they provide them homes as well. I have spent several trips there - sitting on the floor playing with ALL the children, helping nannies fold the clothes, and holding Mariela.

So, for the second time in a week (actually in three days) this has happened. Tell me how this is protecting the children?? Coming to the home with buses and an entourage and the press to take the children away. This happened last year at another children's home, and now, they want to do the same here. I anyone listening and paying attention out there??

I have e-mailed children advocacy groups, my congress members, friends we have met on the adoption forums, begging anyone and everyone to bring attention to this matter. These children are in danger. They are trying to take them from their only home to take them who knows where and to do God knows what with them.

You can see photos here of the raid and read from Nancy, the director: http://www.semillasdeamor.org/blog/index.html

I am not done and I am not leaving Mariela.


Prensa Libre has a new article about the latest raid on Semillas de Amor : http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2008/mayo/14/237867.html
Here is a loose translation :
Antigua Guatemala. Until yesterday remained unresolved the fate of 51 children, who were found in the interior of the association Seeds of Love, located in Block 55 of the Reform Street, Gardens in Antigua.
The lawyer of that entity filed an appeal in the Magistrate's Court of Antigua Guatemala, to prevent the Attorney General's Office (PGN) to withdraw three children who lacked legal document for adoption, after a complaint that a mother her daughter was there.
Representatives of the PGN, the Human Rights Ombudsman and the National Civil Police conducted a surveillance in search of Carmen del Rosario Callejas Quinonez, 8 months old.
They established that the documents of 51 children had not been reported in a court, which led to PGN ask the representatives of that association respective records.
However, it was not until the afternoon, when they filed the paperwork complete 48 children, not three, who said only count with birth certificates and a copy of the writ of alleged mothers.
Rigoberto Duarte, PGN's lawyer, said that Judge Peace, Aida Gamboa, notified them that they could not take children because of the quantity and that, before handing Carmen del Rosario Callejas, he had to testify in court . But hours later, Gamboa changed opinion.
"We have noticed anomalies, for the complaint in the case of Carmen, from the three infants without dossier, and the other 48 children," said Duarte.
Staff PGN hoped the move toward the capital yesterday to Carmen del Rosario and Juan Carlos Alonzo, 6 months; Katerinne Vanesa Suchité of 8, and Carolina Col Ical, 6.
Gamboa said that the appeal submitted by the association interrupted a resolution, which is not within its competence to resolve. "Children are at the same location under police surveillance," he said.
Nancy Bailey, director of the birthplace home, insisted that everything was legal, and that the appeal is a right for all. At the end of this year, the pipeline continued to be resolved.