Guatemala City, Guatemala
Ana Escobar's baby, Esther, was kidnapped when she was just 6 months old. Ana was locked in a storage closet by armed men who stole her baby. "When I got out, my daughter was gone," she said in an interview.
Guatemalan authorities have long suspected that the country's 100$ million a year adoption program is corrupt, relying on kidnapped children like Esther to populate their baby banks. The system is so efficient that, after China, Guatemala is the most common source for American parents to search for adoptable children. In May, however, thousands of pending adoptions were halted to provide a change for investigation. No irrefutable evidence has been found to prove that kidnapped babies have been supplying the adoption program, until now.
When Ana Escobar heard the news about the adoption stoppage in May, she rushed to the National Adoption Council's office. She hoped to be allowed to see pictures of the children whose cases were being reviewed. Though Esther had been gone for over a year, Ana immediately recognized her in an image of the baby being carried away by an official. More photographs of the same toddler only strengthened Ana's resolve, and she insisted that the little girl was her own.
By that time, Esther had DNA records indicating that her mother was someone other than Ana. However, Ms. Escobar convinced officials to run a final test to confirm. The results proved that Esther was her daughter, as Ana knew they would. Mother and child are now reunited at last, in what is hopefully to be the first in a growing trend of righted wrongs in the Guatemalan adoption system.
To read more about this extraordinary reunion, visit http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,390044,00.html
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