300 infants illegally put up for adoption
300
infants illegally put up for adoption
(15-07-2008)
NAM DINH — Around 300
under five-year-olds have allegedly been falsely put up for adoption abroad in
the northern province of Nam Dinh since 2006, provincial police reported.
The heads of two communal
healthcare centres were arrested last month under suspicion of forging State
adoption documents and of making up bogus histories for the infants, said Nam
Dinh Investigative Police Department.
Tran Ngoc Lam, who lives
in Nam Dinh City, allegedly picked up abandoned children in the province and
took them to healthcare centres in Yen Tien and Yen Luong communes. The centres’
directors, Vu Dinh Loi and Truong Cong Lich, allegedly forged fake birth
certificates for the children so they could be put up for adoption.
The children were then
sent to centres for disabled children in Y Yen and Truc Ninh districts.
It is believed Y Yen’s
Centre for Disabled Children, which was established two years ago and which has
a seasonal nursing staff of just four, had, by June 21, sold 100 infants to
foreign child adoption organisations.
Meanwhile, Truc Ninh’s
Social Protection Centre, which was established in early 2005, has allegedly put
221 infants illegally up for foreign adoption.
According to Nam Dinh’s
Department for Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, inspectors found five
heavily pregnant women staying at the centre when it was raided.
The investigation was
launched following an anonymous letter that claimed the centres were engaged in
child trafficking. There had also been rumours circulating among local residents
that the centres were selling babies abroad.
The Department’s Child
Care and Protection Division reported that they had found 11 infants, aged two
to five months, at the Y Yen centre. They are now been taken care of at the
provincial Social Protection Centre.
Nam Dinh Investigation
Police Department was also looking into the case, said department director
Nguyen Ngoc Kha. — VNS