Couples left in limbo by Vietnamese adoption logjam

By: Susan Mitchell

Sixty applications from people seeking to adopt children from Vietnam have been withdrawn since an adoption agreement between Ireland and Vietnam lapsed last May.

Sharon O’Driscoll, chief executive of adoption mediation agency Helping Hands, said that the agency had 360 applications on its books earlier this year, but that one-sixth of those had since been withdrawn. O’Driscoll said there was great uncertainty about the Vietnamese situation, an d that people might have withdrawn applications for a variety of reasons.

‘‘We are getting calls from people every day asking whether this [their adoption] will happen," said O’Driscoll, whose agency is the only accredited mediation agency for Vietnamese adoptions in Ireland.

‘‘Many people have already waited so long. Some are six or seven years in the system. They are often worried about family formation.

They may already have a child, and don’t want too big an age gap." However ,there are fears that people who were hoping to adopt from Vietnam are turning to countries where adoption legislation is less stringent. Under Vietnamese law, foreign nationals adopting children must do so under a bilateral agreement, b ut Ireland’s agreement with Vietnam expired on May 1, leaving couples who had applied to adopt in limbo.

Minister for Children Barry Andrews initially refused to clarify why the agreement had not been renewed, but later cited concerns about the adoption process in Vietnam.

Andrews met Vietnamese deputy prime minister Hoang Trung Hai last Friday as part of a Vietnamese trade mission to Europe.

A spokesman for Andrews said that both governments had outlined their positions in relation to the bilateral agreement and relevant legislative developments.

However, Alan Shatter, Fine Gael’s spokesman on children, questioned why a working group which was set up to monitor procedures under the agreement did not appear to have raised concerns. He said the group ‘‘never worked coherently or properly’’, and that ‘‘the issue was not treated seriously’’.

Shatter said that it was ‘‘grossly unfair to people who adopted in good faith’’, and to people who had been waiting years to adopt from Vietnam. A number of international reports have criticised adoption procedures in Vietnam.

Helping Hands was criticised in a draft UN report which was leaked recently, but O’Driscoll said that her agency had not been contacted by the UN agency before the report was prepared. The UN body later wrote to Helping Hands, saying that it had satisfactorily clarified the issues raised before the report was finalised.