How to Adopt a Child From Vietnam
International adoption is often the path many adoptive parents take, and Vietnam has been an increasingly popular country from which to adopt. While the future of adopting from Vietnam is currently unclear, the United States’ government is working to ensure that inter-country adoption between the United States and Vietnam remains a viable option beyond 2008.
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Instructions
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How to Adopt a Child From Vietnam
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Start by researching adoption agencies. Once you’ve identified a reputable adoption agency with which you want to work, hire that adoption agency.
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Schedule a homestudy and begin preparing your dossier. Your dossier will include such documents as an application to adopt, passport copies, financial statements, medical background checks and proof attesting that you do not have a criminal record.
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After your dossier has been processed, you will be matched with a waiting child. Be sure that you determine, before you to get to this point, whether you can approve or reject the child you are assigned and whether you will be allowed to look at the child’s medical records prior to your decision.
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Once you’ve accepted a child, the orphanage at which the child is living will release the child so he can be adopted. If the orphanage does not yet have consent from the child’s legal parent or guardian to release the child for adoption, it must first obtain that consent before the child can be legally released.
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Your dossier, which was presented to the adoption agency, will now be given to the Justice Department in the province in which your child currently resides.
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Together the Justice Department and the police will review your dossier and investigate under what circumstances the child was given up for adoption. This process generally takes 30 days.
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Once your dossier has been reviewed and the investigation is complete, the Justice Department will either approve or reject your application for adoption.
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If your adoption is approved, you must travel to Vietnam to complete the adoption process and pick up your new son or daughter. Expect to be in Vietnam for several weeks.
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Tips & Warnings
To be eligible to adopt from Vietnam, you can be married or single. However, you must be heterosexual according to Vietnamese law.
Children up to the age of 15 can be adopted from Vietnam.
If you want to adopt a child who is older than nine years, you must receive an approval of the adoption in writing from that child.
Adopting from Vietnam generally costs between $20,000 and $30,000.
Your dossier and request for adoption could be rejected because the child was illegally taken from her parents.
The United States government issued, in early 2008, a warning against prospective adoptive parents adopting children from Vietnam due to the fact that the 2005 Memorandum Agreement, which allows adoptions between Vietnam and the United States, expires on September 1, 2008.
Discussions are taking place to renew the agreement beyond its scheduled expiration date, so that adoptions between Vietnam and the United States can continue.
