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The Joint Council on International Children’s Services issued the following information recently. I’m most interested in the following points made:
- The process in Vietnam remains largely decentralized
- Vietnam has yet to publish a schedule of fees
- DIA (department of inter-country adoptiona) does not have the ability to address problems at the provincial or local level
The point that I find the most troubling is the fact that the DIA seems to have no power in the provinces. That is ridiculous. The bilateral agreement that created this department seems to have done nothing to remedy the fact that problems are occuring at the provincial level.
I am encouraged that there seems to be more of a spotlight on ethical practices, and I feel that adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents play a big part in (helping or hurting) this problem. As long as parents will pay high fees to sketchy people in order to get super young babies home in very short periods of time, we will continue to have this problem. On the other hand, if parents report and make public any instances of unethical adoption behavior, we may be able to put an end to it.
I don’t know how much hope we can hold out for the DIA, so we need to do what we can.
January 29, 2007
Joint Council staff and Board of Directors met with the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last Monday in conjunction with our quarterly Board meeting. The following update was supplied to us by DOS:
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Overseas Citizens Services, Catherine Barry, discussed the Vietnam situation during her November testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations. As she said at the time, and as State and JCICS have spoken about previously, DOS wishes they could say the bilateral agreement was a silver bullet that solved all of the problems they saw in Vietnam before the Vietnamese Government’s 2002 suspension, but this is not the case. The process in Vietnam remains largely decentralized, despite the creation of a Department of Inter-Country Adoptions (DIA) within the Ministry of Justice. There are a lot of actors, each with his or her own interests, and little oversight or centralized control. Vietnam has yet to publish a schedule of fees, as required by the bilateral agreement, and while there may be differences of opinion about the amount of authority the DIA may have in theory, no one disputes that in practices it is not taking remedial or punitive actions. Also, DIA does not have the ability to address problems at the provincial or local level, which is, unfortunately, where the problems were primarily found in the pre-2002/2003 period. Both the State Department and CIS are continuing to assess the situation in Vietnam and look for solutions. DOS urges JCIC Member agencies operating in Vietnam to also work on improving the situation. DOS believes there needs to be better coordination among adoption service providers operating in Vietnam, a willingness to report improper behavior to U.S. Government officials either in Vietnam or Washington, and the strictest adherence to ethical adoption practices. Joint Council will continue to update the caucus on any new information or developments as they are made available.
from jcis website
