Adoption Corruption has been in the headlines again recently. Perhaps many in the Vietnam-Adoptive community haven’t noticed because the countries in the spotlight this time around are Samoa and India. Relieved that our day in the spotlight is finally over, many in our community have chosen to move on and put the difficult and stressful days of Embassy pronouncements and shocking headlines behind us. But some things just can’t be swept aside. Because the reality is that regardless of the name of the country featured in today’s articles, the story stays the same.
So let’s just stop. Stop turning away. Stop telling ourselves the articles we read are about isolated incidents and have nothing to do with our adoptions. Stop. And take another look, with an open mind – unafraid and with our defenses down.
The opportunity to do just that presents itself in an article published in Mother Jones magazine this week. Scott Carney, a journalist living in India, conducted an extensive investigation into the corruption in adoptions there and the heartbreaking ramifications on one Indian family, the son they lost, and an adoptive family here in America.
Meet the Parents: The Dark Side of Overseas Adoption is not an easy read, but it is a must read.
On February 18, 1999, the day Sivagama last saw her son Subash, he was still small enough to balance on her hip. Sivagama””who, like many in the state of Tamil Nadu, has no last name””lives in Chennai’s Pulianthope slum, a place about as distant from the American Midwest culturally as it is in miles. Children play cricket in bustling streets swathed in the unbearable humidity that drifts in from the nearby Indian Ocean. Despite the hubbub, it’s considered a safe area. Unattended kids are seldom far from a neighbor’s watchful eye.
So when Sivagama left Subash by the neighborhood pump a few dozen feet from their home, she figured someone would be watching him. And someone was. During her five-minute absence, Indian police say, a man likely dragged the toddler into a three-wheeled auto rickshaw. The next day, Subash was brought to an orphanage on the city’s outskirts that paid cash for healthy children.
It was every parent’s worst nightmare. Sivagama and her husband, Nageshwar Rao, a construction painter, spent the next five years scouring southern India for Subash. They employed friends and family as private detectives and followed up on rumors and false reports from as far north as Hyderabad, some 325 miles away. To finance the search, Nageshwar Rao sold two small huts he’d inherited from his parents and moved the family into a one-room concrete house with a thatched roof in the shadow of a mosque. The couple also pulled their daughter out of school to save money; the ordeal plunged the family from the cusp of lower-middle-class mobility into solid poverty. And none of it brought them any closer to Subash.
Stop there, and peel away the biases and reflexive thoughts. Put yourself in this mother’s place. Imagine your child, playing in the front yard one moment, gone the next. What would you do? Would you give up? Would you tell yourself It’s okay, we couldn’t really afford to raise that child anyway. I’m sure he will find a better home somewhere else. NO! Of course you wouldn’t. You would go to the ends of the earth to find your child, no matter how much it cost or how long it took. But we don’t worry about our child being kidnapped and sent to an orphanage – that kind of thing never happens here in America. Perhaps not. But could it happen in Vietnam? What if the traffickers weren’t so brazen as to grab a child off the street, but instead just convinced the parents that they could leave their child in the care of a local center for a while? Consider it as a government run boarding school, or a way of providing daycare while the parents work. Only when they return, their child is gone.
As one mother explained, local officials … and communal authorities had come to the village offering help to the children. After some discussions and visits, several households agreed to send their children to the institution… These were supposed to be short stays, but now apparently many of the children were gone and had not come back … One mother explained how she had become worried and gone to town to see her children, only to be informed that they were gone. “Do you know if my children have been sold?, she had asked me. She had received a photo picturing what seemed like a ceremony of her children being handed over to foreigners and was now seriously worried about the fate of her children. Others told me that some villagers had received money, apparently as “poverty alleviation support. Figures mentioned were between 500.000 VND (some 31 USD) and 1.000.000 VND (some 62 USD).
We can’t deny it and we can’t hide from it. Serious corruption existed in Vietnamese adoptions the whole time American adoptions were open. It wasn’t just a few officials skimming extra “fees” off the top or orphanage officials pitting one agency against another in hopes of making a little more money off each referral. As hard as it is to think about, the truth is not every child adopted by Americans was an “orphan” – some children came from intact families. While some of those families made the “choice” (a questionable word, given the amount of coercion likely involved) to relinquish, others may still not know where their child is, to this day.
Is this getting too uncomfortable? Keep reading.
In 2005, though, there was a lucky break. A cop in Chennai heard reports of two men arguing loudly about kidnapping in a crowded bar…According to a police document filed in court, the orphanage’s former gardener, G.P. Manoharan, specifically confessed to grabbing Subash; records seized from mss show that it admitted a boy about the same age the next day””the same day Nageshwar Rao filed his missing-person report. He was adopted about two years later. The surrender deed, which I reviewed along with similar documents for other kids, is a fraud, police say: The conspirators changed the child’s name to Ashraf and concocted a false history, including a statement from a fictitious birth mother.
It wasn’t too difficult, though, to obtain the American family’s address from the records of Chennai’s High Court””it’s listed on the legal document that makes the adoption official. When I tell Nageshwar Rao that I’ll be traveling to the United States to make contact with the family, he touches my shoulder and eyes me intently. He was greatly relieved when the police told him his son was adopted, not trafficked into the sex trade or sold to organ brokers as he’d heard. Now he just wants some role in Subash’s life. With the few words of English at his disposal, he struggles to convey his hopes. Gesturing into the air, toward America, he says, “Family.” He then points back at himself.
“Friends,” he says.
Read the article in its entirety. And then come back here and let’s have a real, respectful, honest discussion. What would you do, if it were your child – the child you adopted from Vietnam, or anywhere else for that matter. What would you do if one day a man showed up at your front door, handed you a packet of information and told you that your child had been kidnapped and his first family had been searching for him for years? Would you slam the door in his face? Tell yourself that it’s all a big lie and go back to life as usual, ignoring the gnawing feeling in the pit of your stomach? Would you quickly hire a lawyer focusing on protecting yourself and your family? Would you let the man in and open yourself up to the possibility that he is telling the truth? Would you tell your son?
There are no “right” answers, no easy solutions. No one can judge anyone else, without first walking a mile in their shoes. But we owe it to ourselves – we owe it to our children – to do more than just shake our heads at such an awful story and then walk away. Because for all we know, it could be our story.
It’s not right that anyone, anywhere has to consider the possibility that the child they adopted out of a heartfelt desire to love a child and give a child a home came to them through fraud or coercion, or kidnapping. Adoption should be (and most often is) a beautiful thing – redeeming the tragedy of loss and building loving families. But corruption exists. It exists in India, it exists in Samoa, it exists in Vietnam, it exists in America – anywhere and everywhere that adoption is found, corruption can be found as well. Who is to blame? Is it the local thugs, who buy, coerce or steal children for profits? Is it the orphanage director who passes off healthy more “adoptable” children as orphans while the true orphans who are too sickly or otherwise “unadoptable” languish behind orphanage walls? Is it agencies who either complicitly or ignorantly encourage the trafficking with offers of “humanitarian donations” in exchange for adoption referrals, turning a blind eye to any suspicous behavior they may see? What about us? Do we shoulder any responsibility? In our idealistic ambition to give a child a home, are we oblivious to the signs of trouble, ignorantly trusting anyone who promises us our heart’s desire? Is our willingness to pay tens of thousands of dollars to adopt a child from a country where most families won’t make that amount in a lifetime fueling this detestable practice?
And if we can pinpoint where the blame lies, what then? What can we do? Is the system so broken that it can’t be fixed? Or can we channel whatever idealism and righteous indignation we may have into real action? Take it down to a personal level now – knowing what you know now, would you consider adopting again? If yes, why? What precautions (if any) would you take to protect your family from corruption? If your answer is no, what does that mean for all the true orphans who truly need homes?
This is a heavy post, with a lot of hard questions. But I really, truly hope we can talk about these hard questions in a open and honest way, with no “flames” or insults. Because these are the questions that won’t go away, no matter how we try to sweep them aside. And who can understand the complexities of these issues, the anguish or frustration we may feel, but other adoptive families? Truly there is no better environment, no safer place of support, than among those who know the blessings and the burdens of adoption firsthand. So now I open it up to you, and give you the opportunity to speak your mind.
Let’s Discuss It… What is your response to the article? How would you respond if you were in that situation? How do you think we as a community should be reacting to the corruption we see worldwide? Should we be reacting? Or is it better to move on – is this a dredging up of old and unfounded accusations, better left in the past?
To view how another family (in Australia) dealt with a very similar situation with their children adopted from the same orphanage in India, click on this Australian news piece.
32 Responses
Oh my, Christina, what an awesome post! And I have no answers, except to say that while we would love to add to our family through adoption in the future, we were burned so badly with our son’s adoption (although not in a child-trafficking way) that I wonder if we’ll ever be able to take that leap of faith again. I would like to say that I’d do more research for an ethical agency, etc, but I really did A LOT of research this time. So many things go on in-country that I now wonder if one can ever be absolutely sure that his/her child’s adoption was completely on the up and up.
I know that my family can never turn a blind eye again to what goes on in the international adoption world, Vietnam or elsewhere.
And I would never be able to stop searching if my child was stolen. Never.
Makes me wish we had chosen pregnancy and not adoption.
Thank you for writing this, Christina. It was very well-written and needed to be said.
And in response to PP, we did choose (high-risk) pregnancy over adoption for this reason. And it just ended really badly last week, with a 2nd trimester miscarriage.
So take my comment with a grain of salt, since we never actually adopted because of what we saw in the world of adoption.
If I ever thought there was a hint of impropriety in the way my child came to international adoption, I would not stop searching. But more than that, if I thought there was a hint of impropriety before the adoption was even completed, I would not complete the adoption.
Friends of ours did exactly that. They got in-country, became uncomfortable, and left without a child.
I think in a world when adoption is so financially costly, it becomes easier to turn a blind eye – at what (financial) cost do we walk away?
But all I can think of – and I have been thinking about this for a long, long time, looking for an ethical adoption program and wondering where one might be – is that it does not matter, the financial cost.
The cost to the child – and to the birth family – is so immeasurably more.
Rachel – I’m so sorry to hear about your miscarriage.
I guess I should add – that if we were to discover that our child’s birth parents did not want to put their child up for adoption – we would try our best to integrate them into our child’s life. I already would like my child to have that connection but I do not have any information about her birth parents.
When we started the adoption process – we conciously chose to adopt rather than try to get pregnant – because there were supposedly so many children in need of homes. We know a whole lot more about international adoption now and would likely have made a different decision (either trying to get pregnant or doing a domestic adoption). I am not sure if we will add to out family a second time – but it will not be through international adoption.
Wow, I can’t imagine the pain that family in India has been feeling for all these years. Honestly, I’m amazed that the American family wasn’t willing to do a DNA test to find out. If someone came to my door, claiming that my daughter’s family never agreed to her adoption I would have to find out the truth for her. While I may need a few days to get over the shock and the fear, if the birth family clearly stated they just wanted to know what had happened to their child and to keep in touch as friends, I would have to agree.
My child deserves to know the truth about how they came to be in our family. I love her too much to hide something so huge from her. While depending on her age, I may choose not to disclose the information right away, I do believe she has a right to know if her birth family wants to know how she is doing. I would hope I’d have the strength and courage to make this happen for her. And if she was already old enough and decided she didn’t want any contact with them, I would have to respect that too.
Of course the fear that the birth family would want to take my child back would be great. I probably would end up getting in touch with a lawyer just to find out what our rights would be as her adoptive parents.
Even though our daughter was adopted in Russia where there aren’t really cases like this, it still crosses our mind that there is always a chance in international adoption that there was blood family who still visited the child and perhaps didn’t know about the adoption. I certainly hope that isn’t the case, but how can you ever know?
My only complaint is this reporter just showed up and dropped this bomb on the family.The agency knew something was up and never informed them.We can be very quick to how we would react what would we do. I feel for both families and I hope there is some resolution to this tragic CRIME.
[…] couple of news items, but I would like to encourage you to read what Christina wrote today, called “‘Not in My Adoption’…What Price Ignorance?”. Her post is in response to a recently published article on corruption in India adoptions, but she […]
As an AP of a daughter from Nam Dinh Vietnam I live with the fact every day that my adoption was probably not on the up and up. How did my daughter really end up placed in international adoption? I will unfortunately probably never know. I do know that I would do anything to find out if she had birth parents who did not intend for her to be put up for adoption. I have tried to contact the U.S Embassy to ask them if they could help me or offer me any advice on how to search for my child’s birth parents but they did not respond to my emails. I would never give my child back to her birth parents because we are now the only family that she has known but if someone came to me telling me that they new my child’s birth family I would welcome that news with open arms. I want my child to know the truth about what has gone on in Vietnam. I have printed all the news articles about the problems in Nam Dinh and have put it with miy child’s adoption paperwork. I do not plan to hide anything from my daughter.
Sherri –
I think what you are planning to do sounds good. However, I do have some questions and wondered what your thoughts were on the following. What will you do if you present this information to your daughter and she blames you for stealing her away from her birth family and country. I am not suggesting hiding the information from her (don’t get me wrong) but as you probably realize, this information might be very difficult for our children to understand and deal with. What age would you think would be good to present such information? I hope our children will understand that we did not intend for this situation to (possibly) be the case – but I’m not sure they will. All that said – and I still think the information is best coming from us, the APs, rather than others.
I believe this post is very detrimental to the many “true” orphans that are STILL in process to come home from Viet Nam right now. It saddens me that you would take such a risk with these children’s lives. You see there is another side to adoption one that is ligament despite what you all think. (I have proof) However by highlighting the negative you overshadow the fact that many children have found forever loving homes. Children whom truly were orphans. Please consider families like my own whom are waiting for our children to come home.
That was a wonderfully written post, Christina; and the linked article was quite interesting as well. I am saddened to know that the adoptive parents have attempted to block any communication with their son’s possible bio-parents. Personally, I think it would be even more detrimental to the child if this situation does get handled by the FBI. But that is just MY opinion.
I can’t help but think that if this was our family, and someone came to us with information about our children’s first families that we would do everything in our power to maintain *appropriate* contact with them. Certainly we would employ a lawyer to protect our parental rights and to ensure that this was a legitimate situation.
I love my children fiercely. And because I love them I would want them to know everything possible about their history. Yes, we would probably introduce things in an age-appropriate fashion, but we would tell them everything nonetheless. As it stands, we will have to tell them of the suspicions and intimations circling the press right now. What a gift it would be to have concrete data – either way – to share with our kids.
We’ve been through two Vietnamese adoptions, in two years. Things changed between our first and second adoptions. And not for the better. God, how it pains me to admit that! Therefore, would I ever recommend International Adoption to a friend? No. Would *I* do it again? No, definitely not.
I honestly don’t know what I would do if someone contacted me and told me my children (adopted from China and Vietnam) had been stolen from their families and I pray to God it never happens. My problem with people saying they would give the birth parents contact or information is how unfair is that? If either of my children were abducted I would want them BACK-I wouldn’t care how long they had been gone. Having the family that was raising them tell me I could have contact with them would never be enough-these children are my life. So I have no idea what I would do if faced with this situation. I could not give my children back to their birth family, but how unfair for me to tell someone else with a stolen child that I will send them pictures or video of their child.
It’s a no-win situation all around and as cowardly as it sounds I hope I never have to face that scenerio.
Tracy
APx2
Hi Sarah. You asked “What will you do if you present this information to your daughter and she blames you for stealing her away from her birth family and country” I think about this every day. I know that it is a very real possibility that my child will blame me and probably hate me. As sad as I will be for her to feel this way I will understand. I will mostly be sad about the pain that she will be feeling. I dread the day to come when I will have to tell my child every thing but the only thing I can do is tell the truth. about what I know. At what age will I have to talk to my daughter about these things? I am not sure. It will depend on my daughter. If I had to guess it will probably be between age 10 and 15. I guess I will play it by ear as she gets older. She is two now and we talk about Vietnam often. she loves to look at pictures from Vietnam. We also talk about that she was adopted from Vietnam. When we say our night prayers we say God bless Vietnamese mommy and Vietnamese daddy. I have also mentioned that her Vietnamese mommy probably looks like some of the women in our photo album. How my daughter chooses to deal with the hand that life has given her will be her choice and the only thing I can do is support her and love her. No matter if my daughter grows up and hates me and does not want me to be her mom she will always be my daughter and I will always love her.
Christine,
And what would you do? You pose very good question but how do you answer?
Hi Bella,
I didn’t want to inject my opinions into the post, but I’m happy to share here in the comments discussion.
I don’t know that any of us can say with total certainty what we’d do because there are so many gray areas and extenuating circumstances that come into play… but that said, I could not just shut the door and walk away. I very much would like to find my daughter’s birth family (because she has asked why we have no info) and if I learned that they were looking for her, I would absolutely want to contact them and let them know she is safe and loved. I would be nervous about making contact and would want to proceed cautiously – likely with a 3rd party I trusted helping us in country – but I know my daughter would want to meet her family and I would never do anything to keep them from knowing each other. Beyond that, beyond that first contact, it’s hard to say. I’d like to think I’d handle it as well as the Australian family did in the documentary linked at the end of my post.
In the case of my son we have what we believe is a good solid history on him – if ever we learned that was not true, I would definitely pursue whatever legal avenues I had available to hold people accountable. I believe my most important job as their mother is to be their strongest ally – fighting on my children’s behalf, protecting them, and helping them face whatever twists and turns life brings.
This post does read that it’s almost inexcusable to not consider the possiblilty that everyone’s adoption is corrupt. Corruption did happen in Vietnam but according to my friends at the White House (former administration) this was something that was not rampant and was the exception not all emcompassing. The system did need an overhaul and that is what is happening now. I am very thankful that my Vietnam adoption was transparent and I am in touch with my daughter’s birth family who did give her up willingly. She has four sisters and two brothers and we exchange pictures. I feel so lucky to have this information. She is from Phu Tho, a region known for problems. I have a legitimate adoption from there so it’s not an impossibility that others do too. Just a positive two cents to hopefully help some adoptive parents from Vietnam to sleep at night.
What would I do if we were going to adopt again? We would do the same thing we did the first time…adopt an older relinquished child with an identified birth parent. We send letters and pictures to our son’s birth family too…..and I can sleep at night knowing we are going to reunite them in the future.
I know I am not as well spoken as most posters on this blog, but sometimes I feel as though the purpose of this blog is to make those of us who have adopted from Vietnam feel guilty. I know there are tons of tragic stories, I know there is corruption, but I also know for over a year, every attempt was made to locate our child’s birth family AND every attempt was made to adopt our child out locally. I am sorry, but we are 100% confident our adoption and circumstances are legit. I am not going to apologize for it. I am done with the negativity of this blog.
I have a love hate feeling for this blog. Yes, I agree that adoption overall needs to be overhauled and without getting into the specifics of our situation/private life, YES we are committed to ethics. But K, I do agree that sometimes the message of this blog is that if you are not constantly discussing the ethics of adoption in your everyday life or not willing to say, ‘I’m sure my adoption was corrupt’, or as an adoptive parent not flogging yourself daily, then there’s something wrong with you.
I resent comments like the one made above ‘makes me wish we chose pregnancy over adoption’. What kind of thing to say is that? Or posters who go out of their way explicitly detail how ethical they and their adoption are. And to be clear- not all relinquishments with an identifiable birth parent are hunky dory.
Lest we all forget- there are positives to adoption. And most importantly, here are many, many bona-fide orphans on this planet. Not all adoptions are corrupt and you should celebrate your family.
Bella,
When I stated I wished we had chosen pregnancy over adoption – it was right after I read the initial post and I was feeling beaten down yet again for adopting. Partly I was being sarcastic – but partly I was just feeling that I wish I had known about all the corruption and ethical issues with adoption before we started the process. We might have chosen differently. Of course, I will celebrate my adopted child (who isn’t here yet – still waiting to travel) but I feel like this negativity is always going to hang over our heads. I can choose to ignore sites like these but I do want to be informed. Its sort of a fine line and I haven’t figured out yet how to stay informed without making myself crazy for possibly participating in something unethical.
A, I’m sorry to hear that. I am also in favor of DNA testing. You say you’ve had contact with a family for years under the guise that they were your child’s bio family and then for some reason found out that they are not? I am sorry for your circumstance and would be very interested in more information. Did they suddenly tell you that they weren’t your child’s family? How did the rouse come to light? We have DNA (at our own expense, not the government or anyone else’s idea) evidence and our daughter’s family was more than willing to abide with testing. We have become great friends in the 2 years since our adoption and plan on visiting them soon. Our daughter’s family has since given up another son to adoption as well, they simply can’t afford more children and want a better life for them. I am sorry for your situation but still believe what my family members in government have told me–who had very, very high ranking positions in the White House–that the corruption is not widespread and the corruption that was reported were isolated insidences. I’m sorry for your circumstance. Best of luck.
Janie,
Would you be willing to contact me at vncn2@yahoo.com?
I am very sorry, but could my comment, #19, please be removed? I didn’t think clearly of the ramifications that could come about because of the nature of the information. Thank you.
These are thoughts that have not been far from my mind since we started the adoption process – naively, I think, with more of a “rescue” mentality. I still have no doubt that our daughter was meant to be just that, but wonder what the best solution really is for the true orphans of the world. I’m no longer convinced that it must be adoption. I’m just curious what your thoughts are on a birth parent search. We would love to have more information about our daughter’s first family, and figure that it would be much harder 20 years removed from the process than 2.
This blog consistetly acts “holier than thou”. Everytime I look at it, someone is bad mouthing all adoptions and all adoptive parents who do not portray all adoptions as possibly corrupt to their own children. What they hell do you know? You are just an adoptive parent who is as clueless as I am in the whole thing. You did your research, and I did mine. We came to the best conclusions that we could with what we have. Why pass judgement on others like you just because they don’t constantly question their family formed by adoption? Of course I hate that trafficking occurs; I especially hate that it is often funded by US dollars. Of course I know that I can never know my daughter’s full story because I simply wasn’t there for it all; I believe that any reasonable adoptive parent would recognize that. However, this fact would be true in any adoption, not just one from Viet Nam. I will, as any reasonable adoptive parent and honest person might, never pretend to know more than I do. However, I certainly can feel like the chances are very good that my daughter was adopted legitimately because of what I DO know about her adoption. I do NOT have to assume the worst nor do I need to pass the message on to my daughter that she should assume the worst. And yes, I know just what I would do if offered information, any information, about my daughter’s full story. I would take that information and do my best to verify it and try to offer it as part of the full picture to my daughter because it is HER information. The implication that because I do not question my daughter’s adoption constantly that I may do otherwise is frankly obnoxious and close-minded.
Alice, this blog advocates for ethical adoptions. We weren’t created to be a feel-good adoption promotion tool. I’m sure you can get plenty of that through your agency and through other resources on the ‘net, print media, etc. The goal of this site is to give adopting and adoptive parents and other participants in the adoption experience a voice to share what has previously been taboo and not tolerated specifically for those reasons that you shared. While our goal is not to make people feel badly (we are all adoptive parents, too), sometimes when faced with difficult ethical situations it is impossible NOT to feel upset. But the answer isn’t to stop talking about it just because the topic makes some people uncomfortable. Often times the topics that make us the most uncomfortable are the ones we MOST need to be talking about.
As always, this is a collaborative blog and anyone is welcome to publish a blog post and share their own perspective.
I agree, Alice. We can be mindful of what’s out there and the possibilities, rumors and facts, but the bottom line is that I will do everything in my power to make sure that my child does not feel guilt or shame, or that our family wallows in speculation. We know what we know, did the best research we could and will be honest.
Christina- to spout out ‘feel good about whatever your agency tells you’ (or something along those lines) is unfair. You don’t know which agency Alice worked with or what information she and her family have. I respect your perspective and appreciate much of the information this site has provided, but I can’t help but feel concerned the owners of this blog are, by many people, looked upon as some sort of authority on adoptive parenting or the process, and the picture is far bigger than that.
bella,
I’m thinking you got Nicki and me confused and are referring to her reply to Alice?
As to the point of your comment, the owners/contributors of this blog consider ourselves “authorities” only in the sense that we have gone through the adoption process ourselves and have spent a good deal of time in the last 3-7 years researching the issues surrounding inter-country adoptions. We have talked with people in the government, people who work with a number of different agencies, adoptive parents and adoptees. I don’t consider myself an “expert” per se, but it’s likely I have spent a lot more time studying all sides of adoption than the average adoptive parent has.
In fact, truth be told, I get rather tired of studying it. Like most of you, I really just want to be a mom. And most days, that’s what I am. Not an “adoptive” mom, just a MOM. But no matter how tired I get of dealing with adoption and ethics issues, I can’t just walk away … I come back because I feel I owe it to my children and to all the other children who have no one to speak up for them.
I never got into this to be a voice of “negativity” – I’ve said a million times I believe adoption at its best is nothing short of a miracle. The sad reality is that evil corrupt people have taken that miracle and exploited it for their own gains – making “orphans” out of children who have families and convincing loving caring prospective parents there are “millions” of babies waiting for homes. I don’t like that reality but ignoring it doesn’t change it. YES, there are MANY *true* orphans – NO ONE here disputes that. The problem is there are very very few agencies doing the due diligence required to be absolutely certain which children are *true* orphans and which have been kidnapped/coerced/bought from their families. And the only way I know to change that is to EDUCATE prospective adoptive parents. If WE don’t hold their feet to the fire, agencies WON’T change. I’m sorry many of you don’t like what we have to say, but the truth has to be told.
The name of your group is Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity; however, your main focus is corruption. Where is the balance? Corruption does exist and it should be addressed. Ethical adoptions should also be discussed in the conversation. The majority of adoptions are ethical. Many changes need to take place to make the system better, but when you focus only on the negative you taint the reality. When will you write stories about the positive impact of adoptions of children from Vietnam? Presenting the facts as a whole not just one perspective, to provide a balanced representation of adoptions from Vietnam without an agenda to only discuss the negative, that is integrity. Please, for the sake of our children – tell the whole story, not a slanted version.
We are a collaborative blog. That means our content comes from what people submit or want to write about. You are welcome to submit something that addresses ethics from a more positive angle.
When I was in Vietnam adopting my daughter I went to another orphange that housed older children. These were mostly children who were not adopted becuase of the previous breakdown in adoptions between the US and Vietnam. Now their chances of finding a forever family are much less likely…and if they were to be adopted their transition would be much more difficult. If your claims of rampant corruption were true you might expect that one or two of these children would have been reclaimed by a family that did not want to give them up. Over sixty kids in this one orphange, most between 6 to 10. Stopping adoptions because of a few corrupt individuals was a horribly cruel thing to do to these children. They were denied a chance to have a loving family. The rest of their lives will be much more difficult and their opportunites will be far fewer. I have read the negative postings on this website and been frustated in silence for some time. Really, I do not see how stopping adoptions will have a positive impact on the children who are in orphanages. I will never forget how much the kids in orphanage I visited enjoyed having us play with them for an afternoon…and how hurt and lonely they looked when we had to leave. Every effort should be made to make sure adoptions are ethical, by all means audit the records of the agencies and orphanage directors. Every dollar should be accounted for and corruption should be punished severely…but stopping adoptions punishs the wrong people.
Dave – a specific example of how stopping adoptions not only can but HAS helped can be seen if we look at the number of domestic adoptions when ICA was at its height (few) compared to current (much higher and growing). No one believes orphans should grow up in institutions but ICA is simply not the only solution and it just isn’t so black and white as to suggest that without ICA the children of Vietnam will spend their lives in orphanages. There are many many ways we can help children in Vietnam avoid that end result and only one very very small way is through ICA.