Hanoi: A US-Vietnam adoption agreement expired on Monday with the two sides unable to resolve disagreements over fraud and corruption, disappointing hundreds of prospective parents who will have to seek children elsewhere.
The two countries said they will continue trying to iron out their differences, but for now the program will be suspended indefinitely.
Vietnam will continue processing adoptions for parents who had already been matched with orphans before the agreement expired. But the vast majority of the roughly 1,700 families that had cases pending will be disappointed, according to Vietnam's top adoption official, Vu Duc Long.
Exact number
Long said he was still tallying the exact number and would release it later this week. Chandra Wilmsmeyer of Memphis, Tennessee, is one of the hundreds of prospective parents whose cases were cancelled yesterday. She was disappointed that the two sides were unable to resolve their differences without suspending adoptions.
"Hopefully they'll be able to work out a new system quickly," she said. "Otherwise, there are legitimate orphans who are going to be in orphanages longer than they need to be." Wilmsmeyer and her husband will now try to adopt in Russia, but had their hearts set on a Vietnamese child.
"We researched the country and the culture, and we fell in love with it," she said.
"We really became attached to the idea that we were going to bring a child home from Vietnam."
Representatives of US adoption agencies agreed that Vietnam's adoption program had problems, but argued that the vast majority of adoptions were legitimate. They had hoped that US officials would allow valid adoptions to proceed while working with Vietnam to eliminate abuses.
"The US approach has been to blame Vietnam and let the system fail," said Tom Atwood, president and CEO of the National Council for Adoption in Washington.
"It is tragic for these vulnerable children that the US government has not been able to manage this situation in a way that allows legitimate adoptions to proceed."
The two sides still hope to work out their disagreements, but it is not clear when that might happen.
