Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity

The State Department has posted a new “Fact Sheet” for Vietnam, dated June 2008.
While much of the information is a re-wording of previous announcements, there is some new information here, including the following:
Over the course of 28 months (January 2006 to April 2008), 1403 orphans adopted from Vietnam were issued visas to the United States. [...]

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Many people don’t realize that Ethica is primarily a volunteer effort. Most of the people working for Ethica do not get paid and in fact pay for much of Ethica’s expenses out of their own pockets. Ethica is in a unique position of standing in the middle - representing birth families, children and [...]

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This is reposted with permission from Linh Song of Ethica. As a personal note from the editor, I hope we will take her words to heart. We all want to react and Do Something but let’s be careful that our actions do not have unintended consequences.
> “TRY! Make some calls. Contact your resources. NOW.”
You’re exactly [...]

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Today the US Embassy, Hanoi released a summary of irregularities in adoptions in Vietnam that is the longest and most thorough, to date. Likewise they have also released a Warning Concerning Adoptions in Vietnam which states, in part (emphasis mine):
On April 25, the Government of Vietnam announced that it will allow adoption to [...]

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It’s my guess that everyone connected to Vietnam adoptions has seen the internal USCIS memo regarding a new DNA requirement that was posted on Bring Our Children Home yesterday. This memo was news to us as it was to most people in the adoption community - although it appears that USCIS did notify some agencies [...]

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Yesterday, Wednesday March 12th, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing titled, “THE UNITED STATES AND VIETNAM:EXAMINING THE BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP” which was presided by Senator Barbara Boxer.
The hearing did not primarily focus on inter-country adoption issues, but the topic was raised. The Department of State’s representative at the hearing, Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary, [...]

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It is a difficult time for prospective adoptive parents hoping to adopt from Vietnam. Things have been somewhat turbulent for months and now the US - VN Agreement is about to expire and there are questions about whether it will be re-signed in time to prevent a defacto shutdown of adoptions. People are asking for [...]

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JCICS originally promised to make its proposed Standards of Practice available for review on January 20th. That date was later pushed back to January 27th and finally to “early February.” As of 1:00pm Pacific Time on February 13th the Standards are still not available.
We understand that it takes time and careful deliberation to craft these [...]

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Word is trickling out about the meeting at the Hanoi Embassy this past Thursday. Some agencies are sharing a summary of the meeting with their clients and Tad at Adoption Buzz has a good comprehensive summary posted. If you have any information from your agency, please feel free to share in our comments section. (Also [...]

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Ethica launched a new blog in December. It’s a place for all members of the adoptive community (Adoptive Parents, Agencies, Adoptees, and First Parents) to share their views and opinions. It’s also a place where representatives of Ethica share opinions and information. Of special interest to the VN adoptive community may be this post in [...]

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