Kim and I recently learned that the U.S. has expressed serious concerns about corruptive practices associated with adoptions between the U.S. and Vietnam. In response to these concerns, the Department of State will allow the functional closure of adoptions on September 1, 2008 and thereby impact one of the most basic of children’s rights in Vietnam: the right to a safe, permanent and loving family. We know our hearts would be breaking if this same announcement was made about Kenya. Given the outpouring of support that we were so blessed to receive, we feel compelled to share this with you on behalf of Vietnam’s children. And helping here is much simpler and quicker than helping Sundi and Damon has been!
We hate corruption, and fully agree that it should be aggressively rooted out wherever it rears its ugly head—especially in matters pertaining to children. Our government is taking a bold stand against corruption, for which we applaud them. However, we believe the best response to this crisis is to relentlessly fight to end corruption and prosecute violators, not to end a child’s right to a family.
People often view adoptions “only” in terms of the adopted children themselves—even though the value of each and every child is beyond pounds, dollars, or shillings. However, on top of the blessing of family, adoptive parents are very supportive of social services such as family preservation and counseling. Ending adoptions also cuts off many humanitarian services such as educational sponsorships, clean water programs and many health related initiatives. Many of these programs attack the root causes of what makes kids orphans to begin with. In other words, the net impact is that the more orphaned kids that are adopted now, the fewer the vulnerable children who will be orphaned five years from now. The ultimate goal, of course, is that eventually there will be no more orphans to adopt. Until then, there is a lot of work to do.
To end adoptions because corruption exists is the logical equivalent of ending all college sports because some coaches cheat, getting rid of our legal system because some judges or lawyers are unethical, or banning all music because some artists use their entertainment platform irresponsibly. I doubt a petition to ban all sports nationwide due to recruiting violations would be taken seriously; instead, the violators would face stiff consequences Case in point. My beloved U of Michigan basketball team hasn’t been in the March Madness tournament since the mid-1990’s, stemming from the recruiting violations related to the “Fab Five”. College basketball has continued, and we have (gulp) gotten what we deserved. Now enough about my Wolverines before I start getting emotional!
Each incident where corruption is encountered is an opportunity to re-affirm where our true priorities lie—and the best course of action, whenever possible, is to prosecute corruption and replace the violators with those altruistically committed to the cause of children. Yes, this is MUCH easier said than done—but isn’t this the case with most things that are worth fighting for? If you are willing to help, below are a couple simple things that can be done within the next week to help Vietnamese orphans.
1. Send an email in support of A Child’s Right Campaign for Vietnam to advocate@jcics.org. Must be sent no later than this Friday, May 30th. Your email will be included in a petition to Congress.
2. On June 2nd, 3rd, or 4th, please contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators and ask them to support A Child’s Right Campaign for Vietnam. Emails are good, calls are great, both together are awesome!
As always, please be very respectful. Remember that our government is not the “enemy”, and neither is the government of Vietnam. There are people in both governments who have made valiant efforts to fight corruption. Our government is in an extremely tough situation, with no easy answers. We don’t envy them one bit. But most importantly, we don’t want orphaned children to miss out on families because of the unethical behavior of adults.
For more info, you can read A Child’s Right Campaign for Vietnam at www.jcics.org. You can also call the Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute at 202-544-8500 or Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) at 703-535-8045 for more information. If you want the full email we received from JCICS, please let us know and we’ll get it to you.
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