Baby trade laws urged
A SENIOR Vietnamese official yesterday expressed serious fears for the control of the country's booming baby trade, saying stiff new laws were needed to oversee adoptions to foreign parents.
Nguyen Xuan Tue, director of programmes for the protection of displaced children at the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said the Government faced a tough time trying to keep 'bad intentioned' adoption agencies out of Vietnam and local officials straight.
Already one agency has rejected a proposal from a man linked internationally to paedophile rings.
'I'm terribly worried about the situation,' Mr Tue, known locally as Vietnam's 'Mr Adoption',' told the South China Morning Post.
'We must ensure all our actions are in the best interests of the children and to do this we need new regulations. We need uniform adoption procedures . . . and we need honest officials, but there is now great pressure on the system.' Mr Tue's comments come after the first arrests of officials who have abused the legal baby trade, which has seen more than 1,270 children adopted overseas, mainly France.
As Vietnam opens to the outside world, the trade is one of Hanoi's fastest growing cottage industries, with up to 30 French couples now arriving each month to adopt children.
A syndicate involving local doctors and an administrator with the Hanoi's People Committee is facing prosecution after effectively buying a baby girl from poor parents and trying to sell her to a French tourist.
The ring appeared to be operating within current guidelines, forging official papers to show little Luong Thi My was abandoned.
It is understood the baby, now five months old, has been returned to her parents.
Currently only temporary regulations exist and prospective parents can apply to Mr Tue's ministry and wait for an eligible child from a home or go directly to 53 people's committees in cities and provinces around Vietnam.
However, demand is so great that rather than waiting, foreign couples deal directly with touts and brokers working hotels and tourist traps, such as the Hoan Kiem Lake in central Hanoi.
For between US$3,000 to US$4,000 (HK$23,175 to HK$30,900) they offer 'complete package deals' where specific babies are offered, coming complete with signed abandonment papers to subvert the system.
To go through the ministry can take several months but costs less than US$250.
Some reports suggest that demand is now so great doctors and nurses in provincial hospitals are working with brokers to pressure poor and single mothers to give birth 'to order' rather than have an abortion.
Mr Tue said he wanted to increase co-operation with foreign governments and aid agencies.
