Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity

This contribution is republished from the November 2007 Welcome House newsletter, with permission. Thank you, Leonette, for allowing us to share this wonderfully balanced insight into the state of adoption in Vietnam right now! ~ VVAI
By Leonette Boiarski, Welcome House® Director

Children at Nha Trang Orphanage.

In October, I had the pleasure of visiting Vietnam. Over the [...]

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Before I begin a discussion about what defines an “ethical” adoption, I feel it is first necessary to define some basic terms. It’s hard to decide what “ethical” looks like if everyone has their own personal concept of the word. So let’s accept these objective dictionary* definitions and go from there.
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Legal: adj. 1. of or [...]

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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 following account was submitted to the editors of VVAI by a well-connected American currently living in Vietnam who is seeking to adopt and wishes to remain anonymous.
It seems that it works like this:
Americans that get so far along in the adoption process as to arrive in VN are, for lots of reasons (financial and [...]

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Recently I have noticed there are some concerns within the Vietnam adoption world regarding negativity. Mainly, I think, this negativity is being felt on blogs and on discussion groups.  I can’t say I disagree.
There have been a lot of discussions lately about ethics, quick referrals, the stability of the Vietnam program and the overwhelming requests for a HBG AYAP. (HBG: [...]

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Ripped from the headlines…
US adoptions rise sharply, so does related graft
“There are tremendous stresses that come with building a family through adoption,” Sandra Hanks Benoiton, the mother of two adopted children from Cambodia, told AFP.
“Situations like the present one in Guatemala make things much worse,” she added, after police earlier this month seized a [...]

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What is ethical to you? Of course there are some behaviors that are clearly unethical just due to the high level of criminality involved: human trafficking and baby-buying are clearly unethical. You won’t find many people who will argue in favor of these illegal activities.
But beyond that, the definition begins to blur. It is this [...]

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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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