Guatemalan Court Orders Return of Child Kidnapped for Illegal Adoption in U.S.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez (photo of passport: Erin Siegal)
The U.S. government has been ordered by a judge in Guatemala to return a six-year-old girl kidnapped from her family four years ago and adopted by an American couple.
Loyda Rodriguez Morales, the mother of Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez, searched for nearly five years to locate her daughter, and with the help of a human rights group, the Survivors Foundation, filed a court case in Guatemala.
The judge’s order is considered unprecedented in the world of international adoptions, and if the U.S. complies, it would be the first time a government has ordered its own citizens to return a child to its native country.
The American couple, Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan of Liberty, Missouri, has not been accused of stealing the child. Rather, a child trafficking ring likely kidnapped the girl and delivered her to the U.S.
The State Department might ignore the judge’s order for the child’s return. But an advocate in Guatemala says the U.S. is obligated under international law to deliver victims of human trafficking or irregular adoptions back home.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Guatemala Mother Searched 5 Years for Adopted Girl (by Larry Kaplow and Sonia Perez, Associated Press)
Guatemalan Court Revokes Passport; Asks for Return of Adopted Child “Karen Abigail” (by Erin Siegal, Finding Fernanda)
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