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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.

On a hot summer day in June 2010, two Indian children upset with their parents for hitting them left home.

The siblings - 11-year-old Rakhi and seven-year-old Bablu - planned to go to their maternal grandparents who lived just a kilometre away. But a few wrong turns and they were lost.

It's taken them more than 13 years to find their way back - with a lot of help from a child rights activist - to their mother Neetu Kumari.

"I missed my mother every single day," Bablu who grew up in orphanages told me on the phone. "I'm very happy now that I'm back with my family."

Video footage of their reunion at the end of December shows Neetu sobbing as she welcomes Bablu home, embracing him tightly and thanking god for "giving me the joy of holding my son again".

When the girl was only 14 days old, her parents left her at home. He grew up in Bhagirathi Seva Sadan, Beldanga, Murshidabad district.

A completely different language. There is no cultural similarity. The couple reached Beldanga in Murshidabad after crossing Tepantar from distant Italy. He ran to the little girl, whom he had seen through virtual media for so long. Staring at Mariana, the little girl called 'Mama'! Italy's Mariana Simona cried after hearing that.

When the girl was only 14 days old, her parents left her at home. He grew up in Bhagirathi Seva Sadan, Beldanga, Murshidabad district. He was adopted by a couple in Rome. And within seven days he will fly to Italy with his parents.

Nilanjan Pandey, one of the members of the Murshidabad District Child Welfare Committee, said, "The Child Rights and Protection Act of India mentions the right of children to be members of a family among the various rights of children. There are also arrangements for adoption of children who are in public and private homes.”

Obtaining documents on international adoptions from 1974 to 1981.
Circumstances of Korean government’s ‘connivance’ of illegal overseas adoptions.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs avoids responsibility for “private level issues”

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee is conducting a large-scale investigation to reveal allegations of illegal acts by adoption agencies and collusion and condonation by the Korean government during the international adoption of Korean children in the 1970s and 1990s. , a document was identified containing a conversation in the 1970s in which a foreign government protested the Korean government's practice of accepting money from adoption agencies in exchange for adoption and urged improvement.

At the time, the Korean government remained ignorant, calling it a 'private level problem', but this document is evaluated as showing that the Korean government's 'connivance' was behind the spread of illegal overseas adoption.

According to documents related to 'international adoption of orphans' written by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1974 to 1981, obtained by the Hankyoreh from the National Archives on the 12th, the Belgian government at the time raised several issues surrounding the overseas adoption of Korean children, including the involvement of illegal brokers, but the Korean government turned a blind eye. Several circumstances are confirmed. The Belgian government became desperate and even requested a meeting with President Park Chung-hee.

“I advised the Korean ambassadors, but no action was taken.”
On May 1, 1978, Vanhove, the Belgian consul in Korea, met with the Director of the European Affairs Bureau of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and said, “A Lebanese-born woman named Born , who was working in connection with the Holt Children’s Welfare Association, was 1 “Korean orphans are being sold (to Belgium) for 800 to 1,200 dollars per person,” he said, adding that he would meet President Park Chung-hee and tell him this because the matter was urgent. Until the late 1970s, Belgium was the country with the largest number of Korean children adopted, following the United States, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
 

The Belgian government appears to have taken this seriously because if money is exchanged in exchange for adoption, it can be considered child trafficking. Consul Vanhover told the Director of the European Bureau, “I met with the Director of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs last year and raised this issue, but I did not get any results. He strongly protested, saying, “I advised the Korean ambassadors in Belgium to ask the Korean government to step forward and stop (the broker’s intervention), but no action was taken.”

Suspicion of officials sharing adoption fees was also mentioned.
Adoption-related commissions were illegal under domestic law at the time. The Enforcement Decree of the Special Adoption Act, enacted in 1977, stipulates that 'an adoption agency may receive compensation for all or part of the costs incurred in adoption mediation from the prospective adoptive parents.' This means that only actual cost conservation is possible.

During the interview, Consul Vanhover also mentioned rumors in Belgium that high-ranking Korean government officials were sharing the adoption fee. There was pressure as to whether there was some kind of cartel between private companies and the government.

Director Koo Joo replied, “Please meet with the director of the Women’s and Children’s Bureau (Ministry of Health and Social Affairs), who is in charge, and talk about it.” However, on June 27, 1977, a year before this meeting, Consul Vanhover had already met with the Director of the Department for Women and Children of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and complained with a similar point. As no further action was taken, the case went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs instead of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs a year later, and was sent back to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.

The director of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Women’s and Children’s Bureau met with Consul Vanhover the next day, saying, “The issue of orphan adoption is a private-level project. The Korean government is not involved. “If there are brokers taking commissions, that’s a Belgian problem,” she replied.
 

A transcript of a conversation regarding overseas adoption of Koreans delivered by the Belgian consul to the Director of the Women's and Children's Bureau at the office of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs of the Republic of Korea on May 2, 1978. At this meeting, the Director of Women and Children's Affairs responded as if she was avoiding responsibility, saying, “The issue of orphan adoption is a private-level business and a Belgian problem.” Data: National Archives of Korea
Afterwards, the problem was not resolved and international adoptions expanded further. According to a Blue House report document written by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in 1988 reported last year, “Four adoption agencies are receiving an adoption fee of $1,450 and airfare per child from adoptive parents, and in addition to the child support fee, they are also receiving an additional placement fee of $3,000 to $4,000.” ” contains the content.

Recognizing the problem, the government held a meeting of agency heads to improve the adoption business system. At this meeting, content such as 'A huge amount of real estate is being acquired with the proceeds from the adoption agency', 'We are wasting a lot of money on huge sales expenses', and 'We are receiving a lot of money from adoptive parents as a kickback fee', etc. comes out.

Noh Hye-ryeon, a professor of social welfare at Soongsil University who worked at Holt in the 1980s, said, “It appears that the Korean government used children for diplomacy against Nordic countries, which had a large demand for adoption.” Jung Fierens (47), who was adopted by Belgium in 1977, said, “It is shocking that the Korean government at the time turned a blind eye to the wrong adoption practices.” It is considerable. “If the Korean government had taken the necessary measures, adopted children like me would not have been separated from their biological parents and taken to a country on the other side of the world,” he said.

It is crucial to get the truth about South Korea's adoptions, says 50-year-old Lemmy Kook Lyngholm, after a Danish association has put pressure on South Korea to launch an investigation

3 Danes who were adopted from South Korea as children are now demanding that the South Korean government investigate the circumstances surrounding their adoptions.

At the head of the initiative is lawyer Peter Møller, who himself was adopted from South Korea. He has just been to South Korea to make the claim on behalf of the association Danish Korean Rights Group. A South Korean truth and reconciliation commission now has four months to decide whether to accept the request.

Lemmy Kook Lyngholm, you are deputy chairman of the Korea Club, whose members are adopted from Korea. What does it mean for you personally that Peter Møller has been to South Korea to demand an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 53 adoptions?

It is very important to create openness about the South Korean adoptions. Worldwide, it is probably around 200,000 South Koreans who have been adopted over the past six decades. Today, many do not have access to the full truth about their adoption.

Hazaribag (Jharkhand), Mar 1 (PTI) A US-based couple has adopted an eight-month-old girl who was found abandoned in a dustbin in Jharkhand's Hazaribag town in June 2023, a senior district official said on Friday.
    On June 16 last year, some youths found the newborn crying and informed the district administration and Korra police station.
    Deputy Development Commissioner of Hazaribag, Prerena Dikshit, along with officer-in-charge of Korra police station Uttam Kumar Tiwari, recovered the child and transferred her to the newborn ward of Sheikh Bikhari Medical College and Hospital, Hazaribag.
    Dikshit, who also served as the administrator of Sheikh Bihari Medical College and Hospital, directed the hospital superintendent and other doctors to provide care for the baby.
    Upon full recovery, she was handed over to the Child Welfare Department of Hazaribag, said Dikshit.
    Once the child was fully recovered, the Child Welfare Department informed higher authorities, including the Central Adoption Resource Authority, which issued an adoption notice through its portal.
    Subsequently, the authorities of the Child Welfare Committee began searching for the biological parents of the abandoned child, but did not succeed. As per the rules, anyone can adopt the child after 60 days from the issuance of the notice.
    An American couple has now agreed to adopt the child, who is currently eight months old.
    Following the rehabilitation of the child by the American couple on Thursday, Dikshit expressed satisfaction and thanked the couple for adopting the kid. COR BS MNB

Recently, Delhi Police has arrested a gang in the case of human trafficking, eight persons including three women and two men from Punjab have been arrested in this gang. One of the arrested persons is a woman related to Mr. Muktsar Sahib. The girl who was being sold is also related to Mr. Muktsar Sahib's Giddarbaha, this girl has been rescued by the Delhi Police. Now the girl's parents have come forward who say that they had two girls earlier and when their third girl was born, a nurse told them that a family in Abohar needed a girl.

The girl was adopted from them on the assurance that the members of this family are in government service. Now they came to know about the entire incident, let us tell you that the alleged involvement of that nurse in this whole gang has also come to light. They had adopted this girl to Abohar's family through Aman Nars and even instead of taking omens at the time of adoption, they adopted the girl by giving omens in the hope that the girl would be brought up in a good family and their child would be happy. will remain

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Luxembourg in 2007 for banning full adoption for single women. However, fifteen years later, the legislation still has not changed.

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Old laws always contain some surprises, articles whose purpose has become obsolete or regressive. In Luxembourg, it was only in 1973 that women were legally allowed to open a bank account without their husbands, only in 1978 that they were able to terminate an unwanted pregnancy without being prosecuted, only in 2016 that unequal pay between women and men was punished by law. And then there are those articles of law that continue to exist in plain sight. Like the adoption law which, in its 1989 version, still reserved the possibility of adopting a child only to married couples.

This was without counting on the perseverance of Jeanne Wagner, a name that has long haunted the corridors of the Ministry of the Family. In 1995, Ms Wagner was 28 years old and began the process of adopting a child. "It may sound strange, but ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to adopt children", says the bubbly woman, now a grandmother. "It was always my dream". The young woman first turned to the Red Cross, "which refused me on the pretext that I was not married", then to the Luxembourg-Peru association. With the support of Luxembourg's honorary consul in Peru, Haydée Fischbach, she obtained the green light from Peru and packed her bags to pick up a three-year-old girl. "A few days before my departure, the Ministry of the Family contacted Mrs Fischbach to forbid her from sending me away and entrusting me with a child. They even told her that she could go to prison!"

"Mum didn't tell me everything so I wouldn't worry, but enough so that I knew she was fighting for me."

Alicia Johansen spent her childhood moving with her drug-addicted mom from one place to the next, trying to brace herself for the moment when the water and the electricity would get cut off. So at 22, when she had a chance to run Dolittle’s pool hall in the ranching town of Akron, Colorado, she was intent on making some money. She kept the bar open deep into the night, after the older guys who bet on horse races departed, and the truckers and the younger crowd, with the meth, drifted in. Meth, she soon discovered, helped her work longer hours.

An occasional customer was Fred Thornton, a former high school baseball star in his early 30s. Fred was sometimes a roofer and at other times unemployed and homeless. They began dating casually and using together, and he told her of his own complicated childhood: placed in foster care as a toddler, after allegations of neglect, and later adopted.

Alicia’s period was irregular because of the meth, which also dimmed her self-awareness. She was six months along before she realized that she was pregnant; a month after that, she woke up in pain. She had preeclampsia, which caused dangerously high blood pressure, and needed an immediate C-section. She was airlifted to a hospital in Denver, a hundred miles away. Her and Fred’s son, Carter James Thornton, was born on Aug. 6, 2019 — two and a half months premature, 2.5 pounds in weight, and, according to his lab work, exposed to meth and to THC.

That first week at the hospital, Alicia hovered over Carter, who was curled beneath a web of tubes and wires, before going home to get baby things. The third week, she and Fred visited their son and held him skin-to-skin. The fourth week, back in Akron, they faltered: They had no gas money for a return to the big city; they were bickering; they were high. On the fifth week, when Carter was stable enough to leave the neonatal intensive care unit, Alicia returned, but foster parents from Akron were the ones who took him home.

Carter’s drug exposure and his parents’ weekslong absence had triggered a call to child protective services and then a neglect case against Alicia and Fred in the juvenile court of Washington County, where they lived. To get their son back, the judge informed them, they’d need to take a series of steps laid out by the county’s human services department: pass random urinalysis drug tests, with missed ones considered positives; secure stable housing and employment; and make it to regular supervised visits with Carter. During the next three months, as the department steadily recorded Alicia and Fred’s positive drug tests and missed visits, none of their excuses were entertained, a hard line for which they would later be grateful. In December, they decided that if they wanted to raise their child together — and they did — they would have to get sober for good.