The Irish government has posted on the website of the Ministry for Children a report on international adoptions from Vietnam, written and presented by the ISS–International Social Service based in Geneva–This report purports to be objective and independent!! Not only have I lived and worked in Ireland for many years; I know the context in which such a report would be received. I have also researched the work of the ISS and the ubiquitous Mr Nigel Cantwell (one of the authors) for many years–both the ISS and Mr. Cantwell have a long record of strident opposition to international adoption and should not in any way be seen as objective on the issue. (By way of comparison, look at the report on Ukrainian adoptions in which Mr Cantwell was a central figure, designed to impugn the motives of adoptive parents and essentially cast a pall over the adoption process–Do note the current grim situation of children in Ukrainian institutions….It is so sad that this report on Vietnamese adoption by ISS and Cantwell is receiving any credibility at all.)
The fact that the Irish government is using this report as objective evidence of anything is completely astonishing! It is also, in my view, completely irresponsible! Why doesn’t the Irish government carry out its own research?!
Here is the way the report opens–does it sound objective to you?? More anon on all this–
The level and nature of intercountry adoptions (ICA) from Viet Nam are essentially influenced by foreign demand. Thus, the availability of children who are “adoptable” abroad corresponds more to the existence of foreign prospective adopters than to the actual needs of “abandoned” and orphaned children. As a result, the overwhelming majority of adopted children are under 1 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 Viet Nam for processing these adoptions. There is also considerable pressure from abroad for Viet Nam 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”, which is notoriously difficult to investigate, are intriguingly frequent, but 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 ICA as opposed to a domestic solution (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 ICA procedure is influenced by a remarkably unhealthy relationship that can exist 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 the advantage of both.
Children's Rights and Social Orphans 