News- Vietnam to end adoption program with U.S. after report
This AP piece by way of this morning’s Baltimore Sun-
Vietnam to end adoption program with U.S. after report
Quoting several excerpts:
HANOI, Vietnam – Vietnam is ending a child adoption agreement with the United States after being accused of allowing baby-selling and corruption, officials said today.
…
The decision was made following a report from the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi that was first obtained by The Associated Press, alleging pervasive corruption and baby-selling in Vietnam’s adoption system.
The report lists cases in which infants were sold or birth mothers were pressured to give up their babies. In some other cases it describes brokers going to villages in search for babies who could be possibly put up for adoption.
It also says some American adoption agencies have been paying orphanage directors for referrals, and some others have bribed orphanage officials by taking them on shopping sprees and junkets to the United States in return for a flow of babies.
In an angry response, Vietnamese officials denied charges, calling the U.S. side’s allegations “unfair.”
“They can say whatever they want, but we are not going to renew it,” Long said.
The decision also will lead to the closure of 42 U.S. adoption agencies operating in Vietnam, Long said.
The U.S. Embassy says it respects Hanoi’s latest decision but is confident about the accuracy of the report.
“The government of Vietnam has made their own decision, but we believe that our report speaks for itself,” said the U.S. Embassy’s spokeswoman, Angela Aggeler.
The thing to keep in mind here, is that even though the accusations are aimed at Vietnam, it’s the agencies and their practices we’re ultimately talking about here- often American agencies, that operate in many countries, not just Vietnam.
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April 28th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
To expand a bit, here’s a copy of a comment I left on the Adult Adoptees forum, on a thread about today’s news out of Vietnam–
I then did a bit of digging to come up with a current US Embassy list of US agencies working in Vietnam: