US embassy cable - 04HOCHIMINHCITY1187

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 001187 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR CA/OCS/CI AND CA/VO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CASC, CVIS, KFRD, VM 
SUBJECT: Vietnam Adoptions: Baseline Study of Orphanages 
Showing Some Early Surprises 
 
1. Summary: While the USG and the GVN continue to work on 
restarting adoptions of Vietnamese orphans by Amcits, 
AmConGen HCMC has begun a baseline study of local 
orphanages.  The study is intended to determine how many 
adoptable orphans are likely to be available to U.S. 
prospective adoptive parents (PAPs) when adoptions resume, 
and to gauge how well Vietnam is currently handling the 
adoption process.  Preliminary results indicate that the 
number of healthy abandoned infants is significantly lower 
than what might have been expected based on the number of 
petitions for orphan infants processed by Post prior to 
1993.  Results also indicate that the number of foreign 
adoptions being processed (primarily by the French, who have 
a bilateral adoption agreement with Vietnam) is extremely 
low, a fact that orphanages blame on GVN adoption 
procedures.  We intend to continue this study in more 
distant provinces of Vietnam, but will require TDY/WAE 
assistance in order to do so.  End Summary. 
 
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Goals/Method of the Study 
------------------------- 
 
2. Adoptions of Vietnamese orphans by Amcit PAPs have been 
suspended since January 2003, following the GVN's 
promulgation of Decree 68, which was intended to regularize 
and centralize adoption procedures in an attempt to stem the 
rampant corruption and baby-selling that had long plagued 
adoptions in Vietnam.  Because adoptions are currently 
suspended, we reasoned that orphanages are likely to contain 
only genuine orphans - there simply isn't any financial 
incentive at the moment for anyone to buy or sell children 
and launder them through orphanages.  As such, we surmised 
that a survey of orphanages at this time would provide a 
good baseline estimate of the number and ages of healthy 
orphans likely to be available to Amcit PAPs under a "clean" 
adoption system. 
 
3. The primary purpose of the survey, therefore, is to 
gather information on the number of children at each 
orphanage, and particularly the number of healthy infants 
(aged 12 months and under).  The reason for the focus on 
healthy infants is that prior to the adoption moratorium, 
the vast majority of orphan petitions processed here were 
for healthy (non-special needs) infants under one year of 
age.  For example, post processed 66 orphan petitions in 
January 2002; all but five were for children under 12 months 
old.  In February 2002, only 13 of 47 cases were for 
children over one year old.  In March 2002, only nine of 76 
total cases were for children over 12 months old.  This 
trend is consistent for other months and years as well. 
 
4. There are two secondary goals of the survey.  The first 
is to discover which U.S.-based adoption agencies had been 
active in particular orphanages, and to hear the orphanage 
employees' opinions on how well they had worked together. 
The second is to gauge how well the Vietnamese side of the 
adoption process is currently working (by asking orphanages 
what they thought about the process) and to get a sense of 
what effect the France-Vietnam bilateral adoption agreement 
might be having on adoptions between those two countries. 
 
5. To carry out the initial phase of the survey, Fraud 
Prevention Manager (FPM) paid unannounced visits to six 
orphanages in southern Vietnam in August 2004.  The 
orphanages selected were among those at which many orphan 
petition beneficiaries had been abandoned, according to 
their documentation, prior to the implementation of Decree 
68.  We hoped that unannounced visits, as opposed to 
officially arranged tours, would reduce the opportunity 
anyone might have to try to manipulate the results. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Where Have All the Orphans Gone? 
-------------------------------- 
 
6. The total number of healthy (i.e., non-special needs) 
infant children observed at the six orphanages was 
approximately 120.  This number is oddly low, particularly 
considering the number of orphan petitions previously 
processed by post.  Looking back at the first three months 
of 2002, for example, post processed 162 orphan petitions 
for newborns aged 12 months or younger.  If similar numbers 
were being processed now, it would appear that the number of 
available newborns would be quickly depleted.  In addition, 
one would expect that orphanage populations would show a 
"bulge" of children aged 2-3 years as a result of the 21- 
month suspension of U.S. adoptions, but there were virtually 
no children seen in that age range in any of the 
institutions visited. 
 
7. One interesting phenomenon seen during the visits was 
that the official populations of some orphanages did not 
match the number of children FPM actually observed.  For 
example, Tam Binh Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City said that it 
housed 253 children under the age of 18 months.  During the 
tour, however, FPM observed only about 75 children in that 
age range, and saw no empty rooms, cribs or other indicators 
that some of the children might be elsewhere.  Another 
inexplicable disparity in numbers of children was seen at 
the Ba Ria Vung Tau Orphanage, where a staff member said 
that they had no children under the age of 12 months.  One 
of the orphans, however, told FPM that there were 10 
newborns at the orphanage.  FPM was not allowed to tour the 
facility, and so could not verify which account was true. 
 
8. One of the strangest cases was at the Dong Nai Orphanage. 
FPM spoke with a Catholic nun, Pham Thi Men, who had 
volunteered at the orphanage for several years.  She said 
that prior to December 2002, the orphanage had housed "many" 
healthy newborns.  In a change that mysteriously coincided 
with the halt in adoptions from the U.S., however, the 
orphanage stopped housing healthy children altogether, and 
now housed only about 60 disabled and other special needs 
children.  Sister Men could not explain why this change had 
occurred when it did, and was vague on what had happened to 
the healthy children previously housed at the orphanage, 
though she said some of them had been moved to another 
facility nearby.  FPM visited that facility, the Bien Hoa 
Orphanage, and discovered that some children had indeed been 
relocated there, but not nearly as many as had previously 
lived at Dong Nai. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Adoptions Stalled By Bureaucracy 
-------------------------------- 
 
9. Despite the fact that five countries have bilateral 
agreements with Vietnam which allow their citizens to adopt 
Vietnamese children, the six orphanages toured by FPM 
reported a total of only 19 foreign adoptions over the 
previous six months, all involving PAPs from France. (France 
and Vietnam signed a bilateral adoption many years ago, 
after France had unilaterally suspended adoptions from 
Vietnam due to fraud concerns.)  Of this small number, 
several cases had still not been completed.  At three of the 
orphanages, administrators explained that a number of 
bureaucratic impediments made completing foreign adoptions 
very difficult. 
 
10. Most problematic, they said, was the GVN's requirement 
that, before an adoption can be approved, provincial 
authorities contact the birth parents of a child to 
ascertain whether the child had been abandoned.  These 
investigations are supposed to be conducted by provincial 
justice departments, but the justice departments have 
instead tasked the orphanages themselves to conduct the 
investigations.  The orphanages FPM visited were short- 
staffed, and considered it an extreme hardship to send a 
staff member to find a child's birth parents.  Moreover, in 
many cases, what little information they had about the birth 
parents' whereabouts was inaccurate.  In other cases, the 
address of the birth parents was known, but was very distant 
from the orphanage.  In those cases, the orphanages would 
write to local police to request their help in contacting 
the birth parents.  The orphanages complained, however, that 
the police often fail to respond to their requests.  As a 
result of these problems, the few adoption cases that get 
started often become stalemated. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
U.S. Adoption Agencies Viewed Positively 
---------------------------------------- 
 
11. Of the six orphanages visited, four expressed positive 
views about the U.S.-based adoption agencies with which they 
had previously worked.  Tam Binh Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh 
City said they had worked with several agencies.  Go Vap 
Orphanage, also in Ho Chi Minh City, had worked with World 
Child and Hope International, and had only positive things 
to say about the help they had previously received from 
those groups.  Dong Nai Orphanage had also worked with 
numerous adoption agencies, and had no complaints.  Tra Vinh 
Orphanage in Tra Vinh Province had worked exclusively with 
International Mission of Hope (an agency investigated 
extensively in the past by both INS and the GVN), and the 
director expressed hope that he would be able to resume 
working with them if and when adoptions from the U.S. 
resumed.  Interestingly, Ba Ria Vung Tau Orphanage claimed 
never to have worked with an adoption agency from the U.S., 
but benches and chairs on the orphanage grounds were 
inscribed "Compliments of Hope International". 
 
--------------------------------- 
Comment, and a Plea For Resources 
--------------------------------- 
 
12. Thus far, the orphanage visits have shown some 
surprising results, particularly in the low overall numbers 
of healthy infants, the inconsistencies between official 
numbers of children and those actually observed to be 
residing at the orphanage, and the difficulties reported by 
orphanages in processing adoptions under Vietnam's current 
regulations.  Post plans to continue to tour several more 
orphanages in other areas of Vietnam in order to further 
nail down a reliable baseline.  In particular, several 
provinces in central and northern Vietnam (Danang, Thai 
Nguyen, Bac Thai, Ha Tay, and Hanoi) have orphanages from 
which many orphan petition beneficiaries originated, 
including numerous problem cases involving allegations of 
baby selling and official corruption.  As part of the 
survey, post will also examine old IV records to compare 
current realities against past trends. 
 
13. HCMC and Hanoi will discuss how best to survey the 
orphanages in Hanoi's consular district, but right now it 
would seem that the best strategy would be for the surprise 
visits to be carried out by HCMC's FPM (Mission Vietnam's 
only full-time fraud officer), accompanied by a Hanoi-based 
FSN.  This would allow Hanoi's small consular staff to 
continue to focus on meetings with the GVN in preparation 
for A/S Harty's upcoming mid-October visit. 
 
14. In order to complete this baseline study in a timely 
fashion - preferably prior to A/S Harty's arrival - post 
will require TDY/WAE assistance, and will request such 
assistance in accordance with CA/EX guidelines.  Even with 
two TDY/WAE officers currently assisting here, CONS/HCMC is 
still short three officers, and that shortfall will increase 
once the current TDY/WAEers depart.  The problem is 
exacerbated by the fact that post's FPM is also acting ACS 
officer until the arrival of the new ACS chief in late 
October.  Post requests that CA provide resources so that 
post can complete this important step on the road to 
resumption of adoptions from Vietnam. 
 
WINNICK