State Department Responds to JCICS Letter
Aug 13th, 2008 by Administrator
JCICS has posted the State Department’s response to their recent letter written in cooperation with CCAI and signed by 140 members of Congress. The State Department expressed their commitment to “continuing the development of intercountry adoption bilateral cooperation” and then summarized the current situation:
Important aspects of the adoptions process in Vietnam are under the authority of provincial officials. The central government’s ability to control and direct the actions of provincial authorities is limited. It will be challenging to construct an agreement which does not repeat the weaknesses of the existing agreement. The Department is willing to work with the Government of Vietnam to design a limited, transparent, tightly-monitored adoption program that would allow adoptions to continue.
The U.S. Embassy in Vietnam has communicated to senior Vietnamese officials our willingness to negotiate a new agreement within these parameters, so long as Vietnam is making progress towards bringing its laws and procedures to meet Hague Convention standards. Regrettably, there has been no reciprocal GVN commitment to pursue a new bilateral Agreement. We are still awaiting the appointment by the GVN of a senior interlocutor to move this process forward.
Read the full letter at the JCICS website.
Anyone have any thoughts/feelings about this? Doesn’t really sound like anything new. I just keep praying for God to move mountains!
My 2c is that the DoS will do exactly as they say . . . keep things “limited” & “tightly - monitored”. Probably only approve relinquishments where the relationship can be definitively determined through DNA testing. IMO, it’s been the DoS’s agenda to get to this point since last November. It goes without saying that this will severely limit the number of adoptions coming from VN to the US. I only hope that Canada and the European countries that have agreements with VN will be able to provide additional homes to the children of Vietnam.
Politics . . . . I’m so over it already.