Eight Vietnamese jailed for trafficking babies to France
Eight people, including a senior policeman, have been jailed
for up to 12 years for trafficking children from southern
Vietnam to France, officials said.
The accused were convicted of selling 39 babies to French
couples between January 1996 and February 1998, and
helping them fast-track through adoption procedures, a court
official in Ho Chi Minh City told AFP Friday.
Ringleader Ho Thi My Hanh, 38, was jailed for 12 years, as
was Nguyen Si Vinh, 45, a senior officer in the Ho Chi Minh
City Police Investigation Division, for accepting bribes to turn
a blind eye to her activites.
Six others, including three women, were imprisoned for
between two and nine years. Since 1998, at least 28 people have been imprisoned for selling new-born babies to
foreigners and forging adoption documents.
In May last year, two Vietnamese women were jailed for five years after being convicted of buying three babies
from impoverished mothers at a hospital in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang for as little as 15 dollars each.
French couples account for about half the Vietnamese babies who have found new homes with foreign familes
since the early 1990s. Nearly 6,000 Vietnamese infants were adopted by French parents between 1995 and
1999 alone.
However, Paris banned the adoption of Vietnamese children in April 1999 after it was revealed that some
"orphans" had living parents who were duped into thinking their offspring would return home after a short holiday.
Other couples found themselves being asked fees of up to 10,000 dollars from intermediaries who engaged in an
underground trade in babies from the impoverished Mekong Delta.
Earlier this month Vietnam's justice ministry said a new decree would come into effect on January 2 next year
specifying that all adoptions must be approved and processed by a specialist agency within the ministry.
The new decree also specifies that only foreigners from countries which have bilateral agreements with Vietnam
will be allowed to adopt Vietnamese children.
Vietnam has yet to ratify the 1993 Hague Convention on child protection which set up international norms for
cross-border adoptions.
Agence France Presse - August 02, 2002.
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