On Wednesday April 1, 2008, I attended a meeting in Washington at the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute with the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Justice and seven other members of the Vietnamese Delegation.  I wish to thank Kathleen Strottman, the Executive Director of CCAI, for the use of her office and her help in getting the meeting arranged.

The Department of State has issued the statement below concerning second referrals for those families that lost their referral after September 1, 2008.  It is not good news for those families in this situation.  We have asked the DOS to explain why Vietnam would have changed their mind on second referrals.  Prior to September 1 it was stated that a second referrals would be given to any family that lost their referral.  We would like to get a count of all the families that lost referrals and now need a second referral.  If this applies to you please email us at iaap@iaapadoption.com .  You can read the text of the Department of States statement by clicking on "read more" below.

Click on the read more link below to see the complete report by Hannah about the children at the Siping Center.  The report includes photos and info about the children there now and some of the children who have successfully graduated from our Center and one that we hope will be adopted soon.   We  have new photos on each individual child's page.

Report from December 2008  to February 2009

The info below is from VietnamNet Bridge an online Vietnamese publication.  The article says that the US is waiting on Vietnam to sign the Hague.  Vietnam could still be years away from signing the Hague.  This will not solve the problems the US sees in Vietnam nor will it allow the US to resume adoptions there.  Vietnam must still put in place an adoption system that the US approves of.  Other countries that signed the Hague years ago such as Guatemala and Cambodia still do not have an adoption system in place that the US accepts. 

We still know little about what took place at the meeting last week in Hanoi between Assistant Secretary of State Jacobs and the DIA and MOJ in Hanoi.  We have asked the Department of State for any information about what took place but as of Friday they had no information and today is a holiday for them. 

 

Adoption Alert
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Office of Children's Issues
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Assistant Secretary of State Janice Jacobs is scheduled to be in Vietnam from February 8-10.  There is not much known about what she will be discussing with the Vietnamese.  We have been told that she will be having high level meetings with the Vietnamese about a number of issues with one of those being adoption.

We have just started a blog and we are very new to this.  We hope to add items here at least weekly and maybe more frequently.  We will see how it goes.

Chinese New Year - Vietnam and China have just started their New Year Celebration on January 26, 2009 and it will be several days of celebration.  This year will be the year of the Ox in China.  In Vietnam this celebration is known as Tet (see below).