Slow Down in HCMC

Recent reports out of the Provincial department of Justice (POJ) in Ho Chi Minh City say that paperwork is slowing down for a few reasons. First, there is a new person reviewing the dossiers. She is much more strict than the person who had been reviewing them previously. In addition, POJ has moved to a more Hague-compliant policy with regard to birth parent relinquishments. If a birth parent is named anywhere in the child’s paperwork then one of two things must also be in the child’s dossier – either a verification from the local police that the birth parent’s name and address is not valid OR a signed relinquishment from the birth parents. Between the increased scrutiny and the new policy on relinquishments, processing of the children’s dossier by POJ has been slowing down.

Also, one of the large orphanages in HCMC that is placing many children has submitted a number of dossiers that POJ feels were completed illegally or incorrectly. So it is taking a lot of work to separate the dossiers and make this orphanage correct the errors.

So what does all of this mean? They are trying to avoid corruption in the system, which is a good thing, but this leads to longer wait times for everyone adopting children from Vietnam. Hopefully with more experience, they make the process more efficient instead of increasing the backlog of paperwork.