The Adoption Show - Kevin Mînh Allen

Two adult adoptees discuss the recent changes between the Vietnam International Adoption industry and the United States.

Our very own, Kevin from Borrowed Notes will be on an upcoming episode of The Adoption Show - May 25th. It fills me with such pride to see a Vietnamese adoptee out there speaking realistically and critically about adoption. I’m sure this is going to be a discussion worth hearing.

Thanks to Kali Coultas and The Adoption Show for putting this out there!

6 Vietnamese suspected of trying to sell babies arrested

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Chinese police arrested six people suspected of trying to sell two newborn Vietnamese babies as part of a baby-trafficking ring, Vietnamese authorities said Wednesday.

Police in the Chinese border town of Dongxing detained the six Vietnamese — four men and two women — as they allegedly were transporting two 10-day-old boys inside China just beyond the border, said Nguyen Thai Binh, deputy police chief of Mong Cai in northern Vietnam.

Chinese police made the arrests after acting on a tip from Vietnamese authorities monitoring a smuggling ring, he said.

The initial investigation showed that the six allegedly were paid by ring leaders in Ho Chi Minh City to transport the two babies to China to sell them, Binh said.

The suspects were handed over to Quang Ninh provincial police for further investigation, and the two babies were taken to a social welfare center, he said.

Binh said police in Quang Ninh province will cooperate with Ho Chi Minh City police in investigating where the two babies came from, he added.

Last week, Vietnam announced it would stop processing new adoption applications from U.S. citizens after July 1 following allegations of baby-selling, corruption and fraud.

The announcement came days after The Associated Press published details of a U.S. Embassy report that alleged rampant abuses, including hospitals selling infants whose mothers could not pay their bills, brokers scouring villages for babies and a grandmother who gave away her grandchild without telling the child’s mother.

*     *     *

Chinese and Vietnamese police have arrested six baby traffickers in a border town and rescued two newborn baby boys, Vietnamese authorities said.

The four men and two women, all Vietnamese, were arrested in the Chinese border town of Dongxing and handed to Vietnamese police, who had tipped off their counterparts, said a police officer in the Vietnamese town of Mong Cai.

“We have a cooperation hotline with the local Chinese police. With their help, the smugglers were arrested on Monday,” said the Quang Ninh province police officer who asked not to be named.

The suspected baby smugglers, who were aged between 15 and 66, were transferred to provincial police for further investigation. The two babies were turned over to a social welfare centre, the officer said.

“This is the third baby trafficking case we have detected this year, bringing the number of rescued babies to five,” he said.

Vietnamese police busted a trafficking syndicate in February, which sold babies to China for adoption, reportedly charging about $US500 each for girls and $US1,000 for boys.

The US embassy in Hanoi recently issued a damning report about widespread baby selling and rampant corruption in the adoption system in Vietnam, which led Hanoi to cancel a bilateral adoption agreement.

Guatemalan lawmaker’s sister arrested in suspected illegal adoptions of 9 children

GUATEMALA CITY: The sister of a Guatemalan congressman was charged Wednesday with running an illegal adoption ring after police found nine children in her home.

Police raided Rosalina Rivera’s house Tuesday in search of a kidnapped 4-year-old boy, Attorney General Baudilio Portillo said. Officers did not find the boy, but stumbled upon nine children between seven and 12 months of age instead.

Rosalina Rivera was taken into custody and released on bail early Wednesday, Guillermo Melgar, a spokesman for Guatemala’s judicial system, told The Associated Press.

“She said she was just taking care of the babies while their mothers were at work,” but she was unable to say where the birth mothers were, Melgar said.

Rivera is the sister of congressman Gudy Rivera, president of a congressional committee on minors and family affairs.

Last week, the attorney general announced a full case-by-case review of all of Guatemala’s 2,286 pending foreign adoptions, as authorities overhaul an adoptions system plagued by fraud and corruption.

Rep. Rivera’s committee asked the national Adoptions Council to freeze all foreign adoptions for at least a month to allow for the review.

Guatemala has been the No. 2 source of adopted babies for U.S. parents after China, largely because its system is relatively easy to navigate. Prospective parents paid notaries as much as US$30,000 (€19,400) to walk them through the process from start to finish.

Vietnam, where growing numbers of Americans have turned to adopt children, last week announced it will stop processing new adoption applications from U.S. citizens in July, following allegations of baby-selling, corruption and fraud.

A U.S. Embassy report in Hanoi outlined rampant abuses, including hospitals selling infants whose mothers could not pay their bills, brokers scouring villages for babies and a grandmother who gave away her grandchild without telling the child’s mother.

Vietnam’s International Adoption Agency has called those allegations groundless.

Vietnam to end adoption program with US

HANOI, Vietnam - Vietnam is ending a baby adoption agreement with the United States after being accused of allowing corruption and baby-selling, officials said Monday.

The agreement was being considered for renewal but the two sides remained far apart over revisions, said Vu Duc Long, director of Vietnam’s International Adoption Agency. The agreement expires on Sep. 1.

The decision not to renew the pact was made after the U.S. embassy in Hanoi released a report earlier this month alleging pervasive corruption and baby-selling in Vietnam’s adoption system.

The allegations were “unfair,” Long said. “They can say whatever they want, but we are not going to renew it.”

In a letter sent to the U.S. embassy in Hanoi on April 25, Vietnam said it will stop taking adoption applications from American families after July 1, but will continue to process applications of families who are matched with babies before July 1 until the agreement expires.

The decision will also lead to the closure of 42 U.S. adoption agencies operating in Vietnam, Long said.

The U.S. suspended all adoptions from Vietnam in 2003, also over concerns about corruption. A bilateral agreement between the two countries was resumed in 2006.

Since then adoptions from Vietnam have boomed with more than 1,200 Vietnamese children being adopted by Americans over the 18 months ending March 31. In 2007 alone, Americans adopted 828 Vietnamese children.

* * *

Adopted Children Immigrant Visa Unit

Summary of Irregularities in Adoptions in Vietnam

On October 25, 2007 in response to “growing concerns about irregularities in the methods used to identify children for adoption in Vietnam and the resulting difficulties in classifying those children as orphans,” USCIS required that I-600 petitions be filed in Ho Chi Minh City, with the processing of these petitions to be completed before prospective adoptive parents travel to Vietnam. These procedures enable USCIS to determine whether a child qualifies as an orphan, as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act. In the six months since this program was instituted, US officials in Vietnam have investigated over 300 I-600 petitions. This report presents a summary of our findings.

———————-
Country Fraud Profile
———————-

Vietnam is considered to be a high risk country for immigration fraud according to the Department of State. Fraudulent documents are routinely submitted by Vietnamese applicants in both non-immigrant and immigrant visa applications. These include both documents that have been fabricated outright and official documents issued improperly or based on incorrect information. Birth certificates, household registry documents, and marriage certificates can easily be purchased from corrupt local government officials or brokers. Marriage fraud, in order to obtain immigration benefits, is common and has resulted in multiple arrests in the United States.

continue reading

*     *     *

Vietnamese official discredits US criticism of adoption system

A senior government official Saturday rejected a US embassy report criticizing the Vietnamese adoption system.

Vu Duc Long, director of the Justice Ministry’s Department of International Adoptions, said the allegations in the US Embassy report were “groundless” and “unreliable.”

US authorities “did not cooperate with their Vietnamese counterparts in its investigation,” Long said.

The report, released Friday, claimed the Vietnamese adoption system was riddled with corruption and fraud.

The report, written after a review of hundreds of adoptions by US citizens since 2006, said there was evidence of baby-selling in Vietnam.

The two countries agreed to resume the practice of inter-country adoptions in 2006.

In the 18-month period ending March 31, Americans – including actress Angelina Jolie – adopted more than 1,200 Vietnamese children.

A bilateral agreement on adoptions, which was signed in 2005, will expire on September 1.

Long said the US would use the report as a reason for not extending the adoption agreement.

The Associated Press (AP) quoted Long as saying bribery of orphanage officials may occur but serious offenses such as baby-selling or kidnapping were not a problem.

US adoption agencies active in Vietnam told AP that most adoptions in the country were ethical.

Already, the US embassy’s concerns “have left scores of Vietnamese adoptions in limbo,” the AP report said.

Vietnamese babies ’stolen for adoption in West’

By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent

Last Updated: 5:50pm BST 25/04/2008

Vietnamese babies are being kidnapped, bought and stolen from their parents then - in effect - sold for adoption in America, Britain and other Western countries, according to a new investigation.

In some cases hospitals have sent babies to orphanages for adoption after their parents were unable to pay medical bills.

In another, a grandmother sent a baby girl for adoption without informing her parents. The child was reunited with its mother following embassy enquiries.

The report by the US embassy in Hanoi states: “In five provinces, we discovered unlicensed, unregulated facilities that provide free room and board to pregnant women in return for their commitment to relinquish their children upon birth.”

Fraudulent documents then record that the baby was “deserted”. If the mother has a change of heart she must repay the facility for the accommodation she received.

More commonly, parents are persuaded by health officials or orphanage staff to place their children in orphanages in exchange for a typical payment of around £190. They are often told they can visit the child regularly or that it will be returned to them after a few years.

“In a terrifying number of cases the parents had no idea that they would never see their child again,” said Angela Aggeler, the embassy spokeswoman.

Forty-two American adoption agencies are licensed by the Vietnamese government. Many note on their websites that they make charitable donations to orphanages in the country or fund them outright. The average cost in official fees and travel expenses quoted to would-be adoptive parents is around £12,000.

According to the report, donations to the orphanages often amount to a kind of finder’s fee. One orphanage surveyed, “receives a fixed monthly donation for each child in the orphanage who is available for international adoption and the payment is made in cash directly to the orphanage director.

“This orphanage has seen the number of infants in its care increase by more than 2000 per cent in the past year, but it has not made significant increases in staff,” the report states.

Some adoption agencies flew the government officials who licensed them to the United States for shopping trips - and paid for their shopping.

Vietnam’s top adoption official, Vu Doc Long, called the report’s allegations “groundless” and rejected DNA testing or spot-checks on orphanages as an “unacceptable” way to reduce the problem.

Last year 828 Vietnamese children were adopted to America and this year is on course to exceed that figure. Other common destination countries include Ireland, Canada and France. A British consular official said the number of Vietnamese children adopted to Britain averages under 10 a year.

In 2007 Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt adopted their fourth child from Vietnam, but there is no suggestion of impropriety in their case.

Ms Aggaler said she believes the growing popularity of American adoptions from Vietnam reflects the huge number of American couples anxious to adopt, rather than people following Ms Jolie’s example.

The agreement allowing American adoptions from Vietnam is due to expire in September and may not be renewed if the problems are not addressed.

“We are very committed to international adoption,” said Ms Aggeler. “We just want to make sure that no child is not really an orphan.”

Warning Concerning Adoptions in Vietnam

April 2008

The Department of State continues to urge prospective adoptive parents and adoption service providers not to initiate new adoptions from Vietnam at this time. The 2005 Memorandum of Agreement, required by Vietnamese law to authorize adoptions between the United States and Vietnam, expires on September 1, 2008. In addition, recent field investigations have revealed incidents of serious adoption irregularities, including forged or altered documentation, mothers paid, coerced or tricked into releasing their children, and children offered for adoption without the knowledge or consent of their birth parents.

The United States is strongly committed to processing legitimate intercountry adoptions from Vietnam if possible. Our primary concern is to ensure that the children and families involved in the adoption process are protected from exploitation. The Government of Vietnam shares this concern. Both countries acknowledge that more needs to be done to address deficiencies in the current system.

On April 25, the Government of Vietnam announced that it will allow adoption to be completed in cases where prospective adoptive parents have been matched with a child and received an official referral prior to September 1, 2008. It further stated that in accordance with Vietnamese law, the DIA will suspend the acceptance of new dossiers on July 1, 2008. On September 1, 2008 any dossier that has not received a referral will be closed and returned to the Adoption Service Provider. In view of the processing time required in Vietnam from placement to the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, an adoption process begun now cannot be completed before the current Agreement expires.

Prospective adoptive parents should be aware that documents relating to adoptions in Vietnam, such as birth certificates, abandonment reports, relinquishment agreements, and investigative reports are generally issued by orphanage directors, local People’s Committees, Provincial Departments and the Department for International Adoptions (DIA). The facts asserted in these documents are not verified by the issuing officials. Attempts by U.S. officials to verify the accuracy of these documents have routinely uncovered evidence of fraudulent or inaccurate information. Therefore, documents issued by the authorities listed above, and any other documents containing information not verified by the issuing authority, cannot be considered adequate evidence of the facts claimed. They may be used in conjunction with primary and contemporaneous secondary evidence, or must be independently verified by U.S. officials in Vietnam, before they can be considered valid for immigration purposes. (http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/reciprocity/reciprocity_3705.html)

Consular officers have routinely completed field verifications of orphan status in over 35 provinces in Vietnam. However, in some cases, Vietnamese officials have prevented the U.S. Government from conducting independent field inquiries into the status of children identified in I-600 petitions. Embassy outreach, as well as support from adoption agency officials, have thus far allowed independent investigations to resume in some areas that were previously impeded. We continue robust efforts to resolve this issue. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict when we can complete the field inquiries in areas which are still closed to our staff.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and the Department of State have instituted procedures to verify that children identified for placement meet the requirements of Vietnamese and U.S. law, before the child has been adopted under Vietnamese law. Information about these procedures is available from USCIS or through their website http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis. The Embassy strongly advises prospective adoptive parents not to travel to Vietnam until they have received notification from the Embassy that their case is ready for final processing and travel is appropriate. Parents should contact the Embassy immediately if anyone, including their adoption service provider, encourages them to travel to Vietnam prior to receiving this notification. The Embassy can work together with adoption service providers, Vietnam’s Department of International Adoptions, and local authorities to resolve issues such as the scheduling of a Giving and Receiving Ceremony.