Article 17 sections 1-2 of the US-VN Agreement Regarding Cooperation on the Adoption of Children
As you can see from the above excerpt, when the Final Agreement (aka “Memorandum of Understanding”) was signed in June 2005, part of the agreement included Vietnam publicly posting a list of required fees. Unfortunately, this has yet to happen. It is my understanding that Vietnam’s fees were to be standardized across all the provinces. According to the JCICS in their January 2007 update,
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.
It’s important to note that there have been a number of meetings in Vietnam since January and changes have been made to the process to close loopholes and promote more ethical procedures on both the US and Vietnamese side of things. So the above quote may not be a perfectly accurate assessment of where things stand today.
However, I’ve noticed recently that a few agencies are notifying their clients that certain provinces are charging higher fees than others. Prospective adoptive parents are being told that the agency has just recently signed an agreement with a new province and they can have an almost-instant referral, if they are willing to pay a higher fee.
There may be a very good reason for different provinces charging different fees. Perhaps the cost of living in parts of Vietnam is much higher than others and so the officials need to have higher wages to maintain the same standard of living. Perhaps one province has more staff involved or more cases to process and thus their costs are higher. Or perhaps the orphanages in some provinces are in need of much greater humanitarian assistance.
One could read the above articles to state that there will be one national fee schedule set by the DIA in Vietnam. Or one could read it to mean that each province can set its own fees appropriate to their expenses and services and those fees will be published by the DIA. However, either way you read it, the understanding was that all government fees would be published. And because that has not happened, it is hard to explain why some agencies are requiring PAP’s to pay more for a referral from one province than from another. This makes me uncomfortable because it leaves the door wide open to corruption. How do families know where the money is going? Is it that an orphanage director has discovered he can charge more for referrals due to the higher demand? Or are some officials asking for more money to process paperwork, in essence, bribes? Or have some agencies found that PAP’s are desperate enough for a referral that they will fork over money, no questions asked?*
Unfortunately, I am not in a position to solve this puzzle on my own. Which is why I have a request for you, Prospective Adoptive Parents:
Send off an email or give a quick call to your agency and ask them, do they have different fees for the different provinces they work in? If yes, which ones and why? I would like to compile the information from various agencies and see if we can’t make some sense of the disparity in fees. Please, post your agency’s responses here in the comments, or if you’d rather, email me privately ( MrsBroccoliGuyATgmailDOTcom ). I can keep the names of agencies anonymous and we can just analyze the data by province. I’ll put together a chart and post it here.
Knowledge is power. The more adopting parents know, the better it will be for our children, and for the system as a whole.
*I know I sound overly paranoid and suspicious, but I’m not the only one who has these concerns. Every public statement from the State Department regarding Vietnam adoptions mentions a desire to see a published list of fees. If this list does not materialize, at some point the US could easily use that as a reason to halt adoptions once more.
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7 Responses
YOu wanna hear something disturbing…..
In Ireland (which the process on the front end takes longer but in country is like 1 week and of which C is a citizen) the fees for adoption in Viet Nam are 5-7k (if that) for the country fee.
Why such a discrepancy? If C and I could go and live in Ireland we would be able to afford another adoption Now.
Yup, where is that fee schedule.
BUT…people who bring it up like it is going to slam shut the door any second are wrong, they wouldn’t have let it open if it was as important as they claim it to be.
[…] this is a weird item on my “Good Thing” list but it made me smile so… My latest post on VVAI was highlighted on Google Alerts (for the search category “Vietnam Adoption“). I know, […]
Thank you for this post! I have been concerned about this since I was researching agencies. Individuals are supportive of their agencies with statements like “I was never asked for additional money or bribes”, but with a 50% difference in fees between some agencies ($9000 to $15,000) couldn’t that be used for bribes that parents aren’t aware about. Makes me suspicious when it’s those charging $15,000 that are getting quick referrals.
Brilliant post as always, and as usual tackling a subject that has been much on my mind lately. It really frightens me that people get told that a new orphanage in the north will cost $3,000 because “costs are higher in the north” and nobody questions it because they are so anxious for their referral. That is a real example from a while back that still haunts me. You do bring up some really great points though that I hadn’t considered about why the higher costs may indeed be justified. Like you, I tend to be paranoid and suspicious when I see those higher costs and fast referrals. I will email you off-line with the info for my agency, which will likely shock you (in a positive way). Of course the program is new and nobody has traveled yet – so we have yet to see if the agency can stick with their in-country fee or if they will be pressured to raise it. I hope more people keep hopping over here and really think about what you are posting – and as usual, I thank you for getting this going and challenging us to keep informed and thinking.
[…] Article 17 sections 1-2 of the US-VN Agreement Regarding Cooperation on the Adoption of Children As you can see from the above excerpt, when the Final Agreement (aka “Memorandum of Understandingâ€) was signed in June 2005, … …more […]
Something has happened although I’ve not seen the full text yet: The Ministry of Finance’s Decision 67/2007/QD-BTC of Aug 1, 2007. ‘Guidelines for collecting, managing and using charges required in adopting a child’. I’ve been here in VN for over four years, working for the VNese gov’t, and live and work only with VNese people. Bribes are absolutely universal, but are called something like gratuities or commissions. The concept of ‘corruption’ feels dirty coming from the Western reality. Here it’s the very air we breath. It’s in the pores of everything. Normal. Accepted because it must be accepted. Absolutely everything in the country would stop, including adoptions, if the normal gratuities and commissions were not paid. This is called ‘an envelope culture’ because this ‘corruption money’ is cash rather openly handed over inside of envelopes.
I’m quite sure that there can be no ‘business deal’ involving thousands of US dollars that does not include serious money slipping into a number of pockets.
THIS should cause those who are ethical purists to pause and think again ‘does the means justify the end’. Ignorance is bliss but knowledge is sometimes too much to bear. I, too, am trying to adopt, and I am an ethical purist. It’s so easy here to just trade money for a child. Just a week ago another lady came to me wanting to give me one of her children in exchange for a gratuity. In this community people feel that its unfortunate that people have economic hardship, but many do, and they feel that its only right that the one with money ‘helps’ the one with so little (you take the baby, you give me money, for example). And gratuities, appropriately small to large, get paid to everyone involved in any sort of monetary transaction. Everyone living here is totally aware of this – including everyone working at the US Embassy. They know they are giving people free passes in giving visas to all these adopted babies. Thank them with all your heart – but no gratuities will be accepted.
[…] is very welcome news. As I said in my post back in June publishing a list of fees will go a long way toward protecting the adoption process from […]