By Kristy Tridhavee
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Asia
HANOI, Vietnam – In a recent report from the US Embassy in Vietnam, Vietnam orphanages are accused of paying parents for their children and accepting babies that were not given up knowingly.
The report describes adoption brokers coercing poor mothers in small villages, hospitals selling babies whose parents cannot pay their medical bills, and a grandmother giving her grandchild up for adoption without the parents knowing.
Some brokers offer $450 to birth mothers for their babies, which is a year’s salary for most. In another instance, hospital officials turned over a baby for adoption because a mother could not afford to pay her $750 hospital bill. The large medical bill was purposely inflated by the hospital. In one case, a grandmother, who was taking care of her grandchild for weeks while the mother worked in another province, gave the child up for adoption.
The corruption and fraud in the Vietnamese adoption system stems from the donations foreign adoption services provide the local orphanages. Vietnamese law requires foreign adoption services provide funding to Vietnamese orphanages in exchange for adoption referrals from that orphanage. Typically, there is a set proportion of children for donations.
The report alleged that cash and in-kind donations from adoption services have been diverted by local orphanage officials to personal uses—such as private cars, jewelry, and a commercial real estate development.
The US Embassy report comes at a time when adoptions from Vietnam have jumped. In the last 18 months 1,200 Vietnamese children were adopted. Eight hundred and twenty-eight of the children were adopted by American families, which is a surge of more than 400 percent from the year before.
US law requires that the children be knowingly put up for adoption or be reported as abandoned. If the child is reported as abandoned, it is impossible to know if the children are genuine orphans. In 2003, 20 percent of adoptions were reported as abandonments. Now they make up 85 percent of adoptions.
The United States is asking for stronger regulations that include DNA tests for birth mothers and permission for surprise investigations in provinces that arrange US adoptions. Vietnamese officials, however, say that those regulations are unacceptable because adoption in Vietnam is a very private matter, and Vietnamese authorities should take part in any investigation.
Vu Duc Long, director of the Department of International Adoptions, commented, “The American side is trying to make it seem like this agreement is ending because of violations by the Vietnamese side. It’s not fair for them to blame us.”
For more information, please see:
AP – US Alleges Baby-Selling in Vietnam – 25 April 2008
TOP News – US Reports Adoption Fraud Widespread in Vietnam – 25 April 2008
VOA News – US Finds Fraud in Vietnam Adoptions – 25 April 2008
