More Questions Than Answers

After posting the story yesterday about the Vietnamese Ruc people and their complaints about how they were deceived into relinquishing their children for adoption, I remembered where I had read this story before.

Anthropologist Peter Bille Larsen wrote an extensive article about their case back in May 2008.

In this article, I point raise to the specific case of Rục ethnic minority children adopted from an isolated border area of Quảng Bình province in Northern Central Vietnam ”“ and the urgent need for support.

In previous communications with institutions and organizations in Vietnam, I have sought to raise awareness of the situation of several children from one of Vietnam’s smallest ethnic minority communities, the Rục, being taken away and adopted under questionable circumstances without the appropriate conditions and informed consent of their parents.

At the time he wrote the article, Larsen was hopeful that something would be done to help the Ruc people and their children.

I am convinced that not only Vietnamese authorities, but receiving countries, adoptive agencies and families will cooperate actively in securing the protection of these children and investigating the cases at stake.

I know few countries and cultures that value the mother child relationship as strongly and poetically as Vietnam. I am also convinced that the Vietnamese government will stop these loopholes as part of the efforts undertaken by Mr. Vũ Đức Long and the Vietnamese International Adoption Agency.

Authorities and other institutions have since then been alerted about the situation and a number of embassies, adoption agencies and have since then responded to the case. Field investigations by the US embassy quickly confirmed the gravity of the matter, one case is now in process in the US and Italian authorities are currently investigating at least 4 cases of Ruc children reported to be in Italy. Vietnamese authorities have also undertaken a series of efforts to address irregularities in both Quang Binh and elsewhere.

According to yesterday’s article, and another appearing in The Irish Daily Mail, both by reporter Simon Parry,

At the provincial capital Dong Hai, Le Thi Thu Ha, director of the children’s home where the 13 children were taken to, confirmed that a police investigation had been launched into the circumstances in which the Ruc children were adopted overseas.

Miss Ha, who recently replaced former director Nguyen Tien Ngu who handled the adoptions, said one of the children had been adopted by a family in the U.S. while the remainder had been adopted in Italy. However, she insisted: ‘All of the legal documents were in order. It was approved by the provincial ministry of justice and the provincial social welfare centre and it was done with the consent of the Ruc parents.

‘The local police started investigating the case a few months ago. We expect the investigation to be complete and the results announced in the first quarter of 2010.’

So while the Vietnamese authorities have in fact launched an investigation, it is questionable whether such investigation will do more than clear local authorities of any wrongdoing. Given the apparent deception involved in the original relinquishment paperwork and the fact that the Ruc families involved were illiterate, it seems likely that the documentation would be considered “proper” regardless of testimonies to the contrary.

‘He just kept telling me they been adopted by foreigners,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t even tell me which country they had gone to or whether they were together or apart. I said. “How can you do this without my permission as their mother?”

‘Mr Manh calmly told me: “Your daughters have gone and you must accept it. There is nothing you can do. You should go home.”

‘He gave me 200,000 dong (E7.50) and told me to get the bus.’

But what of investigations by the receiving countries – the U.S. and Italy? (As well as possibly France and Ireland)

Mr. Parry reports,

“…when the Irish Daily Mail approached the Italian and U.S. embassies in Hanoi to ask about the case of the Ruc children, the U.S. embassy said it knew nothing of it and the Italian embassy confirmed it had not directly investigated the alleged child thefts, saying it had no power to do so.

Italian charge d’affairs in Hanoi Cesare Bieller said: ‘We acknowledge the importance of the task you are undertaking and we hope that your story will be received with the importance that it deserves.’ However, he added that the Italian Embassy ‘does not have any investigative powers in the matter’.

Jim Warren, spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Hanoi, said: ‘The Government of Vietnam has jurisdiction with respect to the allegations by Vietnamese citizens. The U.S. Embassy is unaware of any complaints or requests.

‘The United States is required to review thoroughly every intercountry adoption at the point when the adoptive parents request approval for their child to live in the United States. Although the United States has expressed serious concerns about inter-country adoptions in Vietnam, during these reviews, we have not identified problems specifically related to adoptions of children from the Ruc community.’

It would seem that in fact no authority, in any country, is taking this case seriously. What’s more, one has to wonder if this is an isolated issue with one specific hill tribe, or if in fact there are other families with similar stories?

Larsen reported in his investigation, “…there are indications of an overemphasis on channeling ethnic minority children into nurturing centres” and further,

The law would seem to have been interpreted somewhat freely by local officials in terms of pro-actively seeking up and integrating ethnic minority children in the nurturing centre. I have not been able to do a more intensive survey, yet suspect ethnic minority children would seem to be overrepresented. An article from July 2007 also speaks of admitting 6 Văn Kiêu ethnic minority from Trương Sơn commune in Qủang Nình district children to the nurturing centre
in July 07 (born between 2000 to 2005).

There seems to be a clear contradiction related to the continuous emphasis on including ethnic minority children in nurturing centres, where support would be better provided in the home communities ”“ as Vietnamese law indeed stipulates.

If that were indeed the case, what could we conclude but that some children were adopted out to the U.S. and European countries under false pretenses and corrupt practices? And where previously perhaps we could assuage our worries and consciences believing that the corruption was limited to children being relinquished willingly but under the coercion of monetary support or promises of a better life in a more developed nation, it is altogether likely that these parents had absolutely no intention of relinquishing and very much want their children back.

Larsen addressed this issue in his article, proposing a solution which no doubt would cause a lot of concern in the adoptive community, but has to be considered.

Yet, the question remains in the end what this really matters for children, who have already been pushed through the adoption process. For the moment, after several months of documentation and further investigations in a context of unusual public discussion both within and outside Vietnam, a solution has yet to be found. Wouldn’t efforts to reunite children being separated from their birth families be a clear sign to both the Vietnamese public and prospective adoption parents, that the system was indeed seeking to work in the best interest of the child? Wouldn’t it be considered a minimum that the rights of birth parents and children are taken into account when questionable and illegal trafficking of children for adoption has taken place? Wouldn’t it also be a sign of respect and support, not only for the specific families concerned but the wider Vietnamese population, if receiving countries of trafficked children committed themselves to provide the economic, moral and social support to facilitate rapid investigation, reunification and contact?

Is this why our countries have made no effort to investigate these cases – because to do so would be to open a Pandora’s box, to push the adoption community to a place that no one dares to even consider? Are we so protective of our own families that we cannot imagine the possibility that perhaps even a small handful of adoptions never should have been completed and that even now some of these children belong with their original families?

Although she has no idea where either Lan or Luong are, or whether they are together or apart, Thu accepts that her daughters may be living a much better life overseas than if they had stayed in Vietnam. But Thu, who has three other children including a five-month-old baby boy, is fiercely and defiantly insistent that their place is at home.

‘I would never have given up my daughters if I had known that they were going to be adopted overseas,’ she said.

What really happened in the Ruc village? Where did those children go? Are there other villages with similar stories? Who is responsible? Does the fact that these minority people live in extreme poverty give us cause to believe they do not have the same rights that our families have? And what assurances do we have that tragedies such as this would not happen again in Vietnam? Or any other country for that matter? These are difficult questions. Uncomfortable questions. But I would argue they are questions that need to be asked, and need to be answered. More than soul-searching, we need action. What if the adoption community were to rise up and demand answers – from our governments, from our agencies, from the officials involved in our adoptions? What would happen then? And do we have the courage to find out?