Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity

UPDATE: You can now read the Embassy statement directly on the Embassy website.
For privacy reasons, the US Embassy in Hanoi can not discuss specific cases or comment on specific agencies. However, the Embassy believes it is important for people to have accurate information about the current situation in Vietnam and have kindly sent us this [...]

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Written by Jena Miller, mom to 3, one brought home from Vietnam in April of 2007
Recently on a Yahoo Group that I belong to (and probably many of you do too) a question was posed about why “some” countries have so many problems with ethics and corruption. The questioner asked why, if there are thousands [...]

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The decision to adopt a child internationally is one of the biggest, most impactful decisions we will ever make. We owe it to ourselves and even more so, to our children, to make an informed decision. It’s not enough to choose a “good” agency and then trust them to take care of the rest. If [...]

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The Prospective Adoptive Parent - Adoption Agency relationship is an odd mix of personal and professional. It starts out the way most relationships do - both parties putting on their best faces, wooing one another. Agencies send out glossy brochures with photos of adorable tiny babies. They cheerfully return phone calls and emails quickly. PAP’s [...]

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Contributed by Jena
Recently on the two list serves that I belong to, people have been asking the question, “what are the reputable/ethical agencies that still allow you to select gender and don’t have super long wait times?” The short answer, in my opinion,  is NONE. Many of the well established reputable agencies are either not [...]

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Have you heard the term umbrellaing used in relation to International Adoption? The term is used to loosely define any agency that does not, themselves, hold a license to conduct adoptions in a foreign country but, instead, works with a licensed agency in order to gain access to a credible license.
The word umbrellaing is an [...]

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A few years ago a t least one well-known and poorly reputed facilitator made an attempt to  put an end to the negative publicity she had garnered through years of corrupt behavior by bringing lawsuits against several parents for defamation after they spoke out against her corruption in public forums including a large email list. Some of these [...]

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Since writing the original artificial twinning post I’ve spoken to several families and read even more accounts about artificial twins and, based on the comments from the last post, I felt some clarity and expansion on the issue was in order.
The post was not meant to detail out the pros and cons of consensual adoption or [...]

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Recently Rebecca over at Adoption Blogs posted a long and well-researched blog post all about Little Pearls Adoption Agency and its history. This is good information to read for those researching agencies.
She says,

After reading all of this, I have to reiterate “Do your research!” We are so lucky that we have the Internet and so many [...]

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In recent months many agencies have notified their clients that the wait time for a referral is going up. Where previously it may have been 3-6 months, now agencies are quoting 12-18 or even 18 to 24 months. PAP’s are understandably frustrated at the increasing waits and the seeming slowdown of referrals. Is there a [...]

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