Vietnam adoptions banned for Americans
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Vietnam adoptions banned for Americans
Go Vap Orphanage in southern Vietnam. Photo: Kerrilee Barrett
Claims that babies were being unlawfully removed from their natural mothers and sold to agencies in Vietnam have caused a ban on all Vietnamese adoptions to the US from July.
Leaked by The Associated Press last Thursday, the US Embassy document cited cases of fraud, corruption and baby-selling in the Vietnamese adoption system. Days later, the Vietnamese authorities announced that it would be stopping all adoptions to the US from July onwards. The United States has been a major adoptive country, having relocated around 1,200 Vietnamese children in the past 18 months.
Contributors
Sam
Elaine
"People are sent out to try to find pregnant women in villages"
Sam works for a humanitarian aid NGO that offers services and aid to children in need in Vietnam. He prefers to remain anonymous in fear of persecution from the authorities.
Corruption is endemic in Vietnam and it comes to light primarily in the adoption industry because there’s a whole lot of money around there. Adoptions cost from 10 to 15 thousand dollars [€6,500 – €10,000] so government officials try to get themselves involved in the cash flow. If you’re an agency in Vietnam – there are 100 licensed – then you have to make arrangements with an orphanage to pay them a monthly contribution. It’s what amount this is and where the rest goes that is where the corruption comes in. Not much money goes to the children – that’s for sure.Adoption agencies also make deals with hospitals. People are then sent out to try to find pregnant women in villages and convince them to come to that particular hospital. A strange thing is that you have to have been doing volunteering work for minimum two years in Vietnam before you apply to be an adoption agency. Then it takes a long time to process the application – without any “encouragement” your papers will just sit there. So when adoption was re-allowed in 2005 [it had been banned in 2003], I don’t know where 100 licensed agencies suddenly sprung up from in a year. Money must have changed hands somewhere. Bribes are the way you do business here. I can’t see the adoption system ever improving."
Sam
- Vietnam
- Humanitarian aid worker
2008 May 1