Sweden offers help over int’l child adoption

Hanoi (VNA)- Swedish Secretary of Health and Social Affairs Karin Johansson emphasised her Government’s interest in the child adoption issue in Vietnam and offered help to the Southeast Asian country in ratifying the relevant Hague Convention in the near future.

Johansson made this statement during her working session with the Deputy Minister of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), Nguyen Thanh Hoa, in Hanoi on November 11.

She also expressed expectations of stronger bilateral cooperation in family care as well as in protecting the health and rights of children.

Vietnam and Sweden have enjoyed long-standing relations in these sectors, marked by the signing of an agreement regarding international child adoption.

Hoa reaffirmed the priority given by the Vietnamese Government to the protection and care of people with disabilities, as well as children as stated in numerous legal documents, including the Law on Protection, Care and Education of Children promulgated in 2004.

Vietnam was the second country in the world and the first in Asia to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and issued two relevant supplementary decrees in 2001. Efforts are currently being made to prepare reports on the progress that has been made in implementing the Convention while a law regarding the disabled is in the pipeline as part of an effort to submit it to the National Assembly for consideration and approval in 2010.

The country is home to some 1.4 million disadvantaged children, mostly living in remote communities, vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters and with high rates of poverty.

“Vietnam hopes to receive more technical and financial assistance from Sweden as well as to learn more from Swedish experiences of a safe community, the importance of social work in preventing child injuries, the protection and care of disadvantaged children, child carriers of HIV/AIDS, disabled and malnourished children and those that have dropped out of school” the Deputy Minister of MOLISA said.-