Vietnam plan to end baby trafficking

Asian babies can fetch a high price overseas

By Clare Arthurs in Hanoi

Vietnam is planning to amend its adoption laws in an effort to stop the trafficking of babies through overseas adoption agencies.

Babies can be sold for up to $50,000 each.

Vietnamese officials say 2,000 babies have been adopted by overseas families in the last decade.

Many of them have been taken to the United States and France.

The government is well aware of the problems of baby selling and fake documents. Late last year, the state media reported that police had broken a major baby-selling ring, with the prosecution of 16 people in the southern city of Ho Chi Minh.

But the illegal practices continue, at so-called baby hotels where deals are done, through orphanages and through the traffickers themselves - the intermediaries who find the babies and sell them.

American demand

Vietnam's deputy justice minister, Ha Hung Cuong, says the proposed new law will only allow adoptions to countries which have a bi-lateral agreement with Vietnam.

Vietnam says it wants to regulate adoption

But these could take years to negotiate and it is not clear whether Vietnamese adoptions will stop.

Some countries, such as Canada, have frozen adoptions because of trafficking. At present, only France has an adoption agreement with Vietnam. It caps the amount which can be paid for adoption expenses in an effort to stop baby-trafficking.

But diplomats here say the result has been that there are very few babies available to French families. Most go to American families and those willing to pay a high price.

The US Government granted visas to 600 babies last year, although some visa applications were rejected because of evidence of fraud.

The new Vietnamese law will also regulate adoption agencies. At present, people seeking Vietnamese babies can negotiate through unlicensed agents, who in some cases keep catalogues of available babies and run the price negotiations.

What the law cannot do is force moral behaviour, either from those who procure the babies or the adopting parents who are willing to pay for them.