You Can Do Better, JCICS
Much has been made about the JCICS proposal/plea to the US and VN governments to find a way to keep adoptions from Viet Nam from ending, and with them certain forms of humanitarian aid. You can see info on the proposal here: http://jcics.org/Vietnam.htm
I support the aims of the proposal. It doesn’t help anyone to end adoptions, and it will hurt children in orphanages, and it will reduce aid to impoverished areas where aid projects have done great work, like clean water programs, health care and vaccinations, and school scholarships. I will take the steps they outline to contact my government in support of it.
Having said that, I think this proposal is woefully inadequate. It says little new, it proposes nothing specific to actually eliminate the incidence of illegal activity. It relies on the Hague accreditation process as an enforcement mechanism, which is moot - the Hague enforcement powers do not apply to non-Hague adoptions, even if the agency is Hague Accredited. Non-convention cases are only looked at for initial accreditation of an agency.
It also relies on the US and VN governments allocating “appropriate resources” to reduce/eliminate trafficking, etc. Is JCICS blind? How many agencies has Viet Nam revoked licensure for? Did they fix the problems in Phu Tho, or simply take them off our radar by closing the province to US eyes? I want to believe that Viet Nam will crack down more on corruption and fraud, but unfortunately, I’m not super-confident that will happen - at least not to the degree it needs to. Viet Nam is a wonderful country, but there’s no denying the government has serious problems when it comes to keeping corruption and fraud in check. Being non-Hague adoptions, the US government doesn’t have oversight power to the adoption agencies (at least not for those cases).
Another point is that just because a country signs and accedes to the Hague convention does not mean it is operating under it or is in compliance. We have two examples right now of this. 1) The US signed the Hague convention in 1994, and it has taken 14 long years to actually finally put it into active enforcement in 2008. 2) Guatemala has signed and implemented the convention, yet their implementation has been deemed not adequate and adoptions from that country are in as much flux as they are from Viet Nam. Just earlier this month the country has begun re-processing cases.
Viet Nam has stated it would like to accede to the convention in 2009 or 2010, but even if it does so, how much longer will it take after that to properly implement the necessary practices? It took us 14 years (and even our implementation is lacking in some respects). A List of accredited agencies as of May 21st can be found here. I applaud Viet Nam for working toward this. I hope they are able to accomplish their goal - and, I hope our government offers technical/financial assistance to implement it, if requested.
I very much appreciate JCICS’s efforts to allow adoptions from Viet Nam to continue. The humanitarian aid given by adoption providers is wonderful, and I really do believe it has helped thousands of children and others in Viet Nam in many extremely important ways. Adoptions provide permanent homes to about 1,000 orphans a year - also a great thing. But, I don’t think they’ve thought this proposal through enough - it needs to include the mentioned “Standards of Practice” now, not just mention they would be included in the to-be-written MOA. If they plan to use the current SoP that they proposed in March 2008, then great, but some of the most important parts of those standards are still incomplete - the appendix contains 4 areas that need to be greatly expanded.
The US government needs to spell out in specific terms its investigation practices, DNA verification practices, etc…and, include those in the MOA.
I do like the idea of an annual report to Congress about the happenings in the adoption program between the US and Viet Nam. That could be a tool used to pressure the Vietnamese government.
For me, three big things remain un-addressed - 1) Transparency of finances, we need to be able to track where the foreign fees paid to Viet Nam go. 2) Agency oversight in the US is severely lacking. States do not know enough or have enough staff to properly regulate international adoptions. The federal government needs oversight powers for all adoption agencies, not just Hague accredited ones. 3) The Vietnamese government needs to commit to enforcing its licensure rules for agencies and facilitators, and revoking licenses when appropriate.
There is no way to completely end all corruption and fraud, regardless of where it is emanating from. But, we can implement a strict regulatory framework to make it harder to do illegal things, and make it so that these practices are caught when they do happen.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:43 AM
Written like a lawyer. It would be interesting to learn how effective application of provisions of the Hague Convention have been in signatory countries- ie specific examples. Sometimes I fear that its all pie in the sky stuff. Viet Nam has so many pressing social problems to address that adoptions (using the quickest possible avenues) seem the best solution for their unwanted infants. So sad. When I read the article recently about the men who voluntarily prepare 40 graves per week in preparation for baby corpses… well it shows that this problem is of a far larger magnitude that is acknowledged in-country.I sound ‘traditional’, however my view is the Viet Nam should be focussing on health care and services for pregnant women and on birth control! There are a host of cultural issues there which I expect will take decades, not years, to develop to the point where they are in accordance with US social standards. I suppose much depends on how badly the Vietnamese want US money to help their in-country humanitarian efforts.
Jonathan reply on May 30th, 2008:
For sure there are many reasons behind all that is going on - Viet Nam has a long way to go in helping its people in the areas of societal safety nets and social support. And, the societal norms surrounding women are quite different than in the US. I think it was just last year that women gained the right to inherit their husbands property when he dies. And, some of the social issues may never change, as that is their culture and it is not our place to tell them or make them act or believe a certain way. Sure, there are basic standards I think we should push for, but beyond that it’s generally not our place to impose our standards on them.
I do have to say the given Viet Nam’s colonial past and more recent wars, communist takeover, etc… that they are doing pretty good - lots of room for improvement, but certainly not as bad as it could be.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:13 PM
Vietnamese women actually have a remarkable history of property rights as early as 40 A.D.:
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/heroine10.html
But Chinese colonialist and the introduction of Confucianism quickly changed that. That’s not to say there are currently no legal mechanisms for women to assert their rights. On paper, and with the assistance of the Women’s Union, women should have equal rights. But the problem is with the implementation…something that plagues Vietnam on many levels:
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Country_Briefing_Papers/Women_in_VietNam/prelim.pdf
“According to the 1996 Constitution
and relevant laws, women and men are granted equal rights with respect to economic opportunities, marriage and family matters, political participation, public administration, and ownership of property including land. The 2000 Law on Marriage and Family stipulates that land-use certificates for household common land must list the names of both spouses, indicating shared possession. However, the 1993 Land Law, which predates it, does not mention co-ownership, and in 80% of cases, land-use certificates in rural areas are registered in the name of the male household head. This can make it more difficult for women to access credit and pursue business opportunities. Although women have equal property rights, they are often disadvantaged due to social factors, which cut across and often contradict the legislation, whose enforcement is often left to the discretion of local officials.”
- Linh