From the Ethica web site via Borrowed Notes:
Operation Identity: Cooperating to Protect the Identity of Vietnamese Orphans
Trish Maskew, President of Ethica, recently returned from Vietnam. While in Hanoi, she met with the U.S. Embassy staff, who revealed something that is terribly shocking and upon which Ethica feels compelled to act. U.S. Embassy staff revealed that approximately 85% of the children being placed for adoption now are reportedly abandoned. 85%! The Embassy strongly believes that most of these “abandonments” are in fact staged abandonments. And indeed, the history of the past 10-15 years lends credence to that belief.
The importance of identifying information to adopted persons cannot be overstated. Every adopted person, no matter who they are or who they were born to should know their origins if at all possible. When adoptees for generations have discussed their pain about the lack of info, and their longing for more, there can be no doubt that for the children this is one of the most important things about any adoption. Indeed in the last 15 years there has been a huge push to open adoptions to address the harm that secrecy causes. And yet, in Vietnam evidence suggests that someone is depriving them of this most essential of life’s information. Who is doing it? We don’t know; there are several possibilities discussed in more depth below. It is our sincere hope that no agency or agency contractor is doing so intentionally, and we believe that not all, or even most, agencies are. But these questions must be answered.
Some, who want to wish away the red flags here, are going to say things like, “well all the children in China are abandoned.” Yes, for very specific legal reasons that do not, and have never, applied to Vietnam. Some will say, “erasing their identities is better than their staying in orphanages.” For some adopted persons that might be true, but the problem is that this practice might develop for one truly troublesome reason–to avoid scrutiny about how children come into care. It can be used to cover up abuses like the purchase of children and abduction, and while this is the worst case scenario that we all hope is not happening, it is not one that officials are willing to ignore.
This is not the time for wishful thinking. Simply put, Vietnam adoptions are at risk and there is no practice that will so quickly close a country to adoption as this one. This very practice was the death knell for Cambodia. Virtually every child there had no identifying information. And the investigations that broke through the veil of secrecy showed that the information was available, and it wasn’t good.
People often say, when discussing adoption abuses, that the government should close down the unethical people, not the country. This is a stance almost all can agree on in principle. But when a practice develops that creates a black hole from which the government can’t get the information to do that, they may determine that there is no choice but to close the country to all adoptions because of the serious abuses that might be happening. If we want to prevent that from happening, the Vietnamese adoption community must work together now to promote transparency.
Ethica is launching a project to encourage transparency in Vietnam adoptions. Called “Operation Identity: Cooperating to Preserve the Identity of Vietnamese Orphans,” the goal is to make known the actual numbers of abandonments and to draw attention to the very real effects these practices can have on children, and the secondary effect it could have on the future of Vietnamese adoptions.
All emphasis is mine. You can read the rest of the news release here.
EDITED TO ADD: This was just a repost of the Ethica news release, because I think that this is incredibly important and wanted to make sure that people were aware of the situation. I have a LOT of thoughts on this but they aren’t coming together in a coherent fashion right now. So for commentary, please see:
- My right to know at Harlow’s Monkey
- Operation Identity at Borrowed Notes
- Operation Identity at Ethnically Incorrect Daughter
3 responses so far ↓
Mei-ling // February 8, 2008 at 11:34 am |
The Chinese girls were never deliberately abandoned. To be “abandoned”, they needed to have been unwanted.
None of they were unwanted in the least. Whoever says that they are adopted because obviously their mother didn’t want them needs a kick in the ass.
- Mei-Ling
Sang-Shil // February 11, 2008 at 10:42 pm |
Mei-ling, I know what you mean about the Chinese girls not being unwanted, but I think the term “abandoned” is being used here in its technical sense, i.e. left without being formally relinquished in person.
While the term “abandoned” has a lot of negative connotations with it (including the implication of being unwanted), as someone who was abandoned in this technical sense, I actually prefer it to some of the sugar-coated alternatives.
courtney // February 12, 2008 at 8:10 am |
Sang Shil,
I agree about some of the adoption terms, not necessarily in particular in general. I think telling my daughter your mom made an adoption plan, is somewhat sugar coating it because when she goes to school, or people ask her they aren’t going to use those terms. They will use didn’t want, gave up etc, and I want to be the first to discuss these issues so that I can tell her what I know about her mom and the situation with the information that I have. Also to help her field intrusive questions from other people.