Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity

From The Independent Online:

A court in Hanoi sentenced two people to four and five years in jail for planning to sell a new-born baby in Hanoi, a court official said Wednesday.

Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Nguyen Van Hai, 42, and his sister-in-law Ngo Thi Sang, 37 for trafficking children, court secretary Tran Cong Hach said.

The pair was arrested in January 2010 when police caught them taking a 10-day-old boy out of a bus station in Hanoi. They were unable to provide the child’s identity.

Hai admitted he bought the baby for 40 million dong [approximately $1900 US] around R13 000) from a female acquaintance and then asked Sang to bring the child to Hanoi to sell to an infertile couple.

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From Thanh Nien News:

Years after their sons and daughters were ‘stolen’ and adopted abroad without their consent, a number of Vietnamese parents have finally been shown proof the children are alive and well. Now, their poor hill-tribe villagers face a moral dilemma.

At first glance, it looks like an ordinary family picture: a doting Caucasian father hovers over his two adopted Asian daughters in the living room of a comfortable suburban home. He holds the younger girl gently by her shoulders.

All three beam contentedly at the camera.

In a ramshackle home on Vietnam’s border with Laos, Cao Thi Thu looks at the image of her daughters with a mixture of joy and pain.

“I am just so relieved to see their faces again and to know they are alive,” says Thu, 37. “But my daughters were stolen from me and I want them to come home. My heart is broken. I miss them so much.”

For three long years, Thu has struggled to find out what happened to her two little girls. Officials had promised to educate and raise them in a children’s home in the provincial capital; instead, they sent the girls to live with adoptive parents in Italy.

The two girls – Lan, now eight and Luong, 13, – were among 13 children taken from the Ruc hill tribe in Vietnam’s Quang Binh Province in 2006 and sent overseas.

Early last year, the scandal was exposed by the South China Morning Post.

Like Thu, all of the parents had agreed to let their children attend the home, 100 kilometers away in Dong Hoi, after being visited by officials who offered the youngsters a better start in life. When the parents went to visit their children in early 2008, however, they were told they had been adopted overseas. Illiterate and only able to sign their names in a scrawl, the parents say they were tricked into signing papers that gave authorities permission to sell their children to families overseas.

Now officials in both Vietnam and Italy appear to be taking the case seriously, albeit with a degree of reluctance. A police investigation has acknowledged mistakes and irregularities in the handling of the adoptions and a new official inquiry has been launched in Vietnam, which Italian officials say they’ll monitor.

The head of the children’s home has personally apologized to Thu and the other Ruc. The officials have shown the aggrieved parents photos of their children living in their adoptive homes. The photos offered them the first real evidence since their disappearance that their children are alive and well.

As the families prepared for a fifth Lunar New Year holiday separated from their offspring, however, they remained determined to fight for their children’s return…

Access the full article here.

VVAI has previously posted information and commentary on this story here, here, here, and here.

From Very Vietnam:

By constructing a building with the name “Tiên Phước 2 Temple” and gathering orphaned children to raise, a so-called “nun” has quickly become rich with money from sympathetic donors…

At the end of an alleyway, stood a three-storey house with yellow paint on its exterior, a spacious interior and a Buddha statuette – exactly the place “nun” Nguyễn Thị Vân tự referred to as a “temple” for orphans.

The ground floor was an area for storing donated goods, while the first floor was the “nun’s” air-conditioned bedroom. The entire second floor served as the eating and play area for 13 children of various ages.

There was little Nguyễn Thanh Hoa Sen, a 3 year-old, whose face was constantly grimacing because a bluish-purple buise swelled on her forehead. Little Nguyễn Thanh Phương was a handsome 3-year old child with fair skin, but had white scales on his scalp due to a fungal infection and hair falling out in pieces.

There were partitions on each bed as infants and toddlers up to 3 slept next to each other. But they would scratch with each other’s faces, and even newborns would sometimes get crushed. On the hard tiled floor, an older child knocked a younger child over, causing the little one to scream in tears.

While we were there, we happened to meet a group of visitors who came in with a large cartons of powdered milk.

Mrs. N.T.H., who was part of the group, disclosed that “In our experience, you have to peel open the milk tub like this so that the children will hopefully get to drink it. Otherwise she’ll get a trader to sell all the milk.”

According to the stories of many neighbours, usually during weekend evenings, “nun” Vân would make calls to vendors outside and arrange to sell all the various donated milk given by people who came to the temple…

After donating lots of money for the care of unfortunate children for a long time, many well-meaning families discovered that Mrs. Vân was indeed a fake. Her work was not done out of charity, but instead being used for selfish greed.

A lot of money and goods were donated for charity, but Mrs. Vân collected the proceeds to buy land and build houses. All the while, the children were left in deprivation, and sick…

Mrs. T.L.P., a forum member of a charity, explained: “She wants all the children to suffer and be sick. That way, she can easily ask patrons to donate. Hoa Quỳnh has symptoms of cerebral palsy, with scabies sores all over her body, but Mrs. Vân leaves her in a crib outside for all visitors to see, eliciting pity to collect money.

Access the full article here.

From the US Department of State:

Vietnam

June 2011

Notice: Adoption Notice Vietnam

Intercountry adoption is not possible from Vietnam at this time. Adoption service providers and prospective adoptive parents should not seek or accept new (or potential) adoption referrals from Vietnam until an announcement is posted that the United States Citizenship and Information Service (USCIS) is again processing new I-600 or I-800 petitions for intercountry adoption in Vietnam.

In June 2010, the Vietnamese legislature passed a new adoption law which took effect on January 1, 2011. The Vietnamese Prime Minister subsequently signed the new adoption decree on March 21 which took effect on May 8. Vietnam continues their efforts to implement the new law and achieve Vietnam’s stated goal ratifying the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (the Convention).

Vietnam signed the Convention on December 7, 2010 and has expressed its intent to ratify the Convention in July 2011 which means that the Convention would enter into force (and Vietnam would become a party) in November 2011. Under U.S. law, if/when Vietnam becomes a party to the Convention, the United States Central Authority (USCA) must evaluate whether procedures leading to the adoption of a child in Vietnam conform to the standards established by the Convention and the U.S. Intercountry Adoption Act (IAA).

The United States recognizes Vietnam’s initiatives as significant developments in the renewed commitment by the Government of Vietnam to strengthen its child welfare system and the integrity of its domestic and international adoption process. Nevertheless, adoption service providers and prospective adoptive parents are cautioned that important steps must still be taken before Vietnam completes this reform process and before intercountry adoptions between the United States and Vietnam can resume.

The USCA cautions adoption service providers that they should not offer or appear to offer adoption services in Vietnam until specific adoption service providers have been accredited or otherwise approved by the Government of Vietnam. In addition, under applicable U.S. regulations, accredited or approved adoption service providers may only provide services in a Convention country if the USCA has determined that the Convention country is compliant with Convention standards.

The United States welcomes Vietnam’s strong efforts to create a child welfare system and an intercountry adoption process that will meet its obligations under the Convention. At this time it is not possible to estimate when adoptions between the United States and Vietnam may resume.

Updated information will be provided on www.adoption.state.gov as it becomes available.

Access the full article here.