How much corruption is too much?

The other day, I read on one of the boards a query from a PAP asking for examples of the types of corruption that are thought to be currently occurring in Vietnam (good for her).  I was, however, really bothered when she followed that question with a statement that some forms of corruption are worse than others.  Really?  I think it was an innocent remark and I don’t mean to condemn her, but I think that it does raise an interesting point.

Is it ok to modify forms to slip them through the process, but not ok to pay a birth mother to relinquish her child?  Is it ok to accede to a request for an additional $500 at an orphanage, but not ok to pay a finder’s fee?  Is it ok to encourage staff at an orphanage to turn away birth parents if they return for their child, but not ok to outright kidnap a child?  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say no.  It’s not ok to do any of these things.

I understand that international adoption is an incredibly difficult process.  That’s probably why they tell you at the outset that it’s not for the faint of heart.  I understand that some families come to adoption as a last chance after years and years of attempting to have a biological family.  I understand that when in country, after bonding with their child, how unimaginably difficult it must be to leave Vietnam without that child.  What I don’t understand is how a person could let the desire (even desperation) to have a child override their sense of what is right and wrong.

*References to unsubstantiated stories ahead*  We’ve probably all read the report of the AP in the airport in Asia who had her baby bundled up and in a sling all in an attempt to get the child into the United States without any authorities seeing that the child in her arms was not the child in the passport she was carrying.  We’ve also read the stories of PAPs being told that they needed to pay the orphanage another $500 for food for the child they were adopting.

If these reports are true, and I have no way of verifying that they are (and quite honestly, I have a really hard time believing the first, while the second seems like it could be within the realm of possibility(I’m using these for the sake of examples only)), what were these people thinking?  What would you do if you were in these positions?  I have to hope that, if faced with an orphanage director or an in-country facilitator asking for additional fees to be paid that I would just say no.  I know that there’s no way that I would try to SMUGGLE a child out of the country and into the US.

What I continue to read in blogland are accusations against agencies.  I read a lot of accusations by APs from the previous round of adoptions in Vietnam of impropriety in their own adoptions, blaming it all on the agencies.  And, again, I’ll say that if agencies are engaging in corrupt practices, they need to be shut down.

But there’s another element of corruption that I think we’re ignoring.  While we’re quick to point fingers at agencies, I don’t see a lot of analysis of what we may have done to contribute to this. We, as PAPs cannot allow our desire to come home with a child outweigh the absolute need to have the process be ethical.  I think we contribute to that in at least a couple of ways.  First, we cannot all be requesting HBG AYAP ASAP (healthy baby girl, as young as possible, as soon as possible).  I’m not going to turn this into a gender/SN post, but I implore those of you requesting this to think about what you’re doing.  You are taxing a system that has broken under the weight of this before.   If there is corruption in Vietnam, how are unethical facilitators or “finders” not going to take advantage of our American demand for these girls?  Supply is short, demand is high, opportunity for unethical behavior awaits.  Unlike here, in VN, there does not appear to be a reliable accounting of where our large international fees actually go.  Personally, I don’t want a penny of it to go to people trying to “facilitate” this demand.

Obviously, that is a much more subtle form of corruption, one that I know a lot of people will not agree occurs.  I think that we each need to think of the possibility that we might be faced with a situation where our reaction will decide the fate of our adoption.  If you knew that the baby in your arms was not the same baby as the one in the passport you were carrying, what would you do?  If you were told that you needed to make a “donation” to anyone in addition to the fees you had already paid in order to get “your” child home, what would you do?  I know what I would do.  I hope you would do the same.

November 9, 2007 - Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | accountability, Adoption, corruption, Vietnam