Mom seeks return of daughter from US

After five-year search and a hunger strike, mom seeks return of daughter from US                        

GUATEMALA CITY — Loyda Rodriguez Morales felt someone tug at her daughter as she tried to enter her simple home with three young children in tow. She turned to see a woman whisk the 2-year-old away in a waiting taxi.

After nearly five years of searching, posting fliers, being turned away at orphanages and even staging a hunger strike, Rodriguez now holds what's believed to be an unprecedented Guatemalan court order declaring the child stolen and ordering the U.S. couple who eventually adopted her to give her back.

If U.S. authorities intervene to return the child, now 6, as the Guatemalan court has asked, it would be a first for any international adoption case, experts say.

The U.S. State Department referred all questions about the court ruling to the Justice Department, which would not comment on the case.

Rodriguez, 26, cried when she saw the July 29 court order made public this past week. She's already planning how to fix up her daughter's bedroom.

"I want it with a lot of decorations. I'm going to buy dolls and clothes so she's not lacking anything," she told The Associated Press. "If she wants to sleep alone, she'll have her room. If not, she can be with her brothers." 

Chuck Johnson, president and CEO of the Virginia-based National Council For Adoption, said he has never heard of the U.S. carrying out a foreign court order to return adopted children to their home country.

But the leading advocate in the Guatemala case said the U.S. government is obligated under international treaties to return victims of human trafficking or irregular adoptions that have occurred.

"We don't have to contact the (adoption) family. The judge's order says authorities have to find the child, wherever she is," she added.

The foundation doesn't allege the U.S. couple knew the girl they adopted had been kidnapped, only that the girl was snatched by a child trafficking ring and put up for adoption with a new name.

The court ruling signed by Judge Angelica Noemi Tellez Hernandez canceled the girl's passport and ordered her returned in two months, asking the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala for help in locating the child.

The court says it will file an order with the international police agency, Interpol, if she is not returned.

Anyeli Liseth Hernandez Rodriguez was born Oct. 1, 2004, the second child of Rodriguez, a housewife, and her bricklayer husband, Dayner Orlando Hernandez, who came as teenagers to Guatemala City looking for work.

The girl disappeared Nov. 3, 2006, as Rodriguez was distracted while opening the door to their house in a working class suburb, San Miguel Petapa.

Rodriguez said she searched for more than a year on her own and was repeatedly refused court permission to search foster homes where kids awaited adoption.

Once they were given access, it still took nearly a year to find a photo that resembled her daughter at the National Adoptions Council, where Rodriguez sifted through records with her brother for four straight days in March 2009.

"I felt like my heart was going to leap out. I knew it was her," she said.

But the girl was already in the United States, according to court records.

Rodriguez said she just wants her daughter back.

"They made a mistake taking my baby," Rodriguez said. "Perhaps they didn't know she was stolen."

Read the whole story at    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44044269/