This is probably the most watched of all the countries that I blog about so imagine my surprise when I did a little digging and found a very important [missed] announcement. It appears that back in late January/early February a notice was released regarding adoption from this country. This is what the Joint Council released regarding this specific notice:
The United States has determined that it will not resume intercountry adoptions on February 1, 2012, when the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation of Intercountry Adoption will enter into force there. Despite Vietnam’s initiatives to strengthen its child welfare system and ensure the integrity of its domestic and international adoption process, it does not yet have a fully Hague compliant process in place…
This came as a surprise to me in regard to the fact that there was a published date of re-opening. I had not heard that February 1st was the long-awaited date. It appears, by this notification that the process of agreement and putting into place acceptable practices has not been reached. This has placed the United States in the position of ‘denying’ the relationship until the agreed upon statutes and changes have been met.
The release goes on to state:
…We continue to caution adoption service providers and prospective adoptive parents that, to ensure that the adoptions from Vietnam will be compliant with the Convention, important steps must still take place before intercountry adoptions between the United States and Vietnam resume. Adoption service providers should not initiate or claim to initiate, adoption programs in Vietnam until they receive notification from the Department of State that it has resumed adoptions in Vietnam.
If you are interested in adopting from Vietnam and have been waiting for them to re-open, your wait is not over. There may be providers that step up and say that they can start your application process for this country. The United States government firmly states that this is not the case. No one should be working on new adoption cases until Vietnam is certified as open.
Overall, this is good news. Some movement on behalf of this adoption program has happened. The United States and Vietnam has worked through their agreements. Now all that is required is that the United States must see the implementation of the agreed upon changes. There is light at the end of the tunnel for adoption from Vietnam.
At this point, Vietnam adoption remains closed to the United States. They are currently seeking a Hague Convention relationship in order to re-open.
~Angie
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