Comments on: Child traffickers convicted in Vietnam

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:24:46 +0000

Oops, meant MOU in recent post…

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:51:21 +0000

This is off the topic, but has anyone heard if there was a meeting between the US and Vietnam in Vietnam in May? I thought I read somewhere that there was to be a meeting to discuss a MOA in May. Thanks for any information.

By: Ruby

Ruby — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:46:33 +0000

Thanks, Tracy-
I don’t think that I can say that I’m happy for the adoptive parents because no matter what, there is no happy ending in that situation. I do hope that sites like this and groups like ours will prevent this from recurring.
Ruby

By: Tracy

Tracy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:03:45 +0000

I might have found an answer to my own question. I found this recent article from People magazine: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17037904/FOC-People-Story.

It says that the US and Samoa came to an agreement that Samoa would not challange the adoptions. It profiles two families. One family voluntarily returned their adopted daughter to Samoa (this is the one I had heard about). The second family kept their adopted daughter but have contact with the birthparents. So, as I understand it, US adoptive familes are still under no legal obligation to return children to their birthparents when fraud is discovered in international adoptions.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:51:15 +0000

Ruby-

Were those children ordered to be returned, or was it up to the adoptive parents to figure out the best thing to do? I have to admit that I don’t remember the details clearly, but I thought that only one child was actually retruned to Somoa, and that was with the agreement of the adoptive parents. They were not given any sort of legal order to do so. I believe I did read that at least some of those children remaining in the US will have visitation with the birth parents. Am I wrong?

Also, I believe the US citizens convicted only got probation, and the US gov’t could not extradite the guilty parties in Samoa. That is a sad, sad precedent.

By: Ruby

Ruby — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:42:55 +0000

Yikes! LSS New England is my agency.

By: Ruby

Ruby — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:42:31 +0000

There IS a precedent for illegally adopted children having to be returned to their birth families. It happened last year-Samoan children and U.S. adopters.

By: Nicki

Nicki — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:25:23 +0000

Agency would have to be either Florida Homestudy or LSS of New England since those are the only two agencies from the US licensed in that province.

By: Kim Wheaton

Kim Wheaton — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:00:04 +0000

Thanks for the reply -
no knowledge of what agency either I’m assuming?

By: Tracy

Tracy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:57:44 +0000

Kim-

I have wondered the very same thing. I have tried to research this and can’t find anything on these arrests except the same AP story quoted over and over.

Since visas were issued for these children, we must assume that the corruption was discovered (or at least proven) after the adoptions were completed. I’m not sure if the government or the agency would have any obligation to tell the families, though I certainly hope they would. In other cases I have seen like this, it has ended up being the media that alerts the families.

If the families were notified, there is no legal precedent for returning the children to Vietnam. A similar situation happened in Guatemala. Birthmothers whose children had been stolen tracked their children down in the US, but the US families refused to have contact with them and are under no legal obligation to do so (though I would certainly argue that at least having contact with the birthmoms would be best for the children). Check out this video on the Guatemala cases: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2009/06/20096249112454512.html