Sale of babies for adoption

Vietnam does not have enough control over its adoption system, which is characterized by both corruption, fraud and the illegal sale of babies, says a new US report.

Corruption, fraud and the illegal sale of babies. There is no control over the adoption system in Vietnam, says a new American report.

The report was prepared by the US Embassy in Hanoi, which has mapped hundreds of adoption cases from the past two years, when the US has again opened up to adopted children from Vietnam.

Hunting for money

According to the Associated Press, the report shows that Vietnam does not have enough control over its adoption system and that there are still a number of cases where orphanages or hospitals or middlemen commit illegalities in pursuit of the large amount of money that is in adoptions.

There are examples where orphanage managers get DKK 50,000 for each child they bring to the big adoption agencies, and where middlemen travel around to poor villages and offer as little as DKK 2,000 for a child.

Among the particularly egregious examples is one in which a hospital inflated a bill so that a young mother could not pay, after which the hospital bought the child for adoption, and another in which a grandmother gave away a young child while the mother worked away from home .

Everything is going right

The Danish adoption company Danadopt is well aware of the problems in Vietnam.

- The fact that critical voices are being raised about adoptions from Vitenam is not new to us. In recent years, we ourselves have repeatedly raised concerns with our own authorities, but also the authorities in Vitenam, says office manager of Danadopt, Ole Bergmann, to Radioavisen.

But the organization has, over a number of years, developed its own system, so that everything goes right.

- We involve ourselves in long-term collaborative projects with the authorities on childcare projects. The only way we can make sure that everything goes right is to make sure we have a long-term collaboration, so that we get a "normal picture" of how things are going, he adds.

Denies accusations

The Vietnamese authorities reject the worst of the accusations in the American report and say that bribery only takes place in a few cases. And so do some of the large American adoption companies that have been asked.

The United States had closed adoptions from Vietnam for three years due to similar irregularities, but is now accepting more than 800 Vietnamese children a year again. Danish adoptive parents received 39 children from Vietnam last year.