Govt moves to strengthen child adoption practices
The Government has urged ministries and local authorities to set up a database for child adoptions and make a list of children living in social care centres in order to protect adopted children, particularly in cases with foreign adoptive parents.
It has also asked the Ministry of Justice to work with local authorities to monitor and protect Vietnamese adopted children abroad.
The ministry will provide advice on finding families for children with disabilities and serious diseases in an effort to lift adoption rates in cities with large numbers of orphans. Cases of child abuse such as sexual exploitation and child labour will be punished according to law.
The Government has asked the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to profile children in disadvantaged circumstances at social care centres to relocate them to new homes. The Ministry of Public Security will be responsible for verifying the origin of abandoned children for adoption.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be responsible for promulgating procedures on child adoption through its foreign-based offices and protecting adopted children abroad.
The Law on Child Adoption was promulgated in 2010. Vietnam is also a member of The Hague Convention of Child Protection and International Co-operation in Child Protection.