Copy of Summary from Draft ISS report for UNICEF on ICA in

Vietnam.

Summary of Key Observations

Intercountry adoptions from Vietnam are essentially demand driven.

Thus the availability of children who are “adoptable” abroad corresponds
more to the existence of foreign prospective adopters than to the actual
needs of the “abandoned” and orphaned children. As a result the
overwhelming majority of adopted children are under one year of age, the
age-group most sought by prospective adopters. Since only a relatively
small and ever-decreasing number of other “countries of origin” are
currently making children of this age “adoptable” abroad, foreign actors
have proved willing to accept conditions put in place by Vietnam for
processing these adoptions. There is also considerable pressure from
abroad for Vietnam to continue as a “source” of very young children.

The circumstances under which babies become “adoptable” are

invariably unclear and disturbing. Declarations of so-called
“abandonment” are intriguingly frequent, with unexplained peaks and
troughs. Procedures for verifying the child’s status and, inter alia, for
ensuring free and informed consent to adoption are inadequate and
inconsistent. Decision making on the availability of a child for
intercountry adoption as opposed to domestic adoption (including return
to the biological family) seems to take no account of the subsidiary nature
of adoption abroad, with little or no effort being made to establish the
child’s real need for the latter or to identify in-country care opportunities.

The intercountry adoption system is grounded in a remarkably

unhealthy relationship between agencies and specific residential
facilities. It involves compulsory and sizeable financial contributions by
agencies in the form of “humanitarian aid” to facilities that they
themselves have identified as potential “partners in ICA. The question of
“aid” generally seems to be given far more importance than ensuring that
ICA is resorted to as an exceptional measure on a case-by-case basis.
Agencies compete with each other to secure children and tend to expect
that children will be “indicated” to them for ICA processing according to
the amount of humanitarian aid provided. Agencies are subject to little or
no monitoring, and neither they nor the residential facilities they work
with have any incentive to address or notify problems, since the way the
system presently functions is to advantage of both.
Governments and Central Authorities of “receiving countries” –
collectively at least, and individually in many instances – have not
effectively committed themselves to applying the basic principles of
the Hague Convention 1993, or the recommendations of the Special
Commission on the treaty’s practical operation, in their dealings with
Vietnam. They have therefore been sending out mixed – hence eminently
unhelpful – messages on the acceptability of the current system. These
frequently seem to respond to pressures more to pressures within their
respective countries than to tackling identified problems. In most cases,
embassies have virtually no knowledge of how their country’s agencies
are operating, let alone being in a position to verify the compliance with
international standards of adoptions to their country.

Vietnam’s desire for rapid accession to the THC-93 constitutes a

highly positive perspective. It will nonetheless require not only far
reaching legislative changes, which Vietnam already envisages, but also a
fundamental change in outlook, including in particular a total divorce
between “humanitarian aid” and other financial contributions and the ICA
of those of its children who may require this measure. The success of
reform efforts will depend not only on Vietnam itself but also on the
willingness and ability of foreign actors other than agencies to provide
active assistance, including in the development of preventative child
welfare measures and of functioning child protection systems, based on a
deinstitutionalisation strategy and the consequent expansion of alternative
care options for vulnerable children.