Vietnam responds to U.S. criticism, bans adoptions by U.S. couples
Apr 29th, 2008 by Holly Fox
According to this Washington Post article, Vietnam will not accept applications for the adoption of Vietnamese children by U.S. citizens after July 1. This is in reaction to a report by U.S. embassy that alleged
pervasive corruption and baby-selling in Vietnam’s adoption system.
A surge in the percentage of babies declared “abandoned” raised a red flag for authors of the report, because it is impossible to determine if infants’ parents had knowingly given them up for adoption, a requirement under U.S. law.
This is a complicated issue because when countries close their doors to international adoption, as Romania did in 2002 under pressure from the European Union, many children who would be adopted are left stranded in institutional care. This 2005 New York Times article explores this issue in Romania.
One thing is sure, however. No adoptive parent wants a trafficked or kidnapped child, instead they want to give a loving home to a child without one. Vietnam’s ban on adoptions by U.S. couples suggests it is unlikely to put a stop to the abuses reported by the U.S. embassy.
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[...] for allegedly taking part in a baby-selling ring. Time reports the arrests here. As I blogged about several days ago, Vietnam has stopped permitting U.S. couples to adopt Vietnamese babies, after a [...]
[...] Holly Fox’s Familienpolitik blog recently posted on a Washington Post article that describes U.S. allegations of baby-selling and trafficking in Vietnam. According to the article, some brokers go to rural Vietnamese villages to buy babies that they later sell to adoption agencies. [...]