Vietnam to halt American adoptions after damning US report

Five-month-old baby girls, are held by workers at an orphanage in Bac Ninh province, near Hanoi,Vietnam, Wednesday, April 23, 2008. Vietnam has failed to police its adoption system, allowing corruption, fraud, and baby-selling to flourish, according to a new report from the U.S. Embassy.
(AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)

Doesn't this just warm the cockles of your heart.

Jesus H Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes, is there no end to human greed?

Vietnam - Vietnam, where growing numbers of Americans have turned to adopt a baby, announced Monday it is halting all U.S. adoptions following allegations of baby-selling, corruption and fraud.

The abrupt cutoff cast a cloud of uncertainty over pending adoptions in the Southeast Asian country, which have surged in the face of tightened restrictions in China, Guatemala and elsewhere.

The announcement came days after The Associated Press published details of a U.S. Embassy report that outlined rampant abuses, including hospitals selling infants whose mothers could not pay their bills, brokers scouring villages for babies and a grandmother who gave away her grandchild without telling the child's mother.

"It is tragic for children that the U.S. government has not been able to find ways to work with the Vietnamese government to prevent adoption abuses while at the same time processing legitimate adoptions," said Tom Atwood, president of the Washington-based National Council for Adoption, a research and advocacy organization.

"Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children will not have families as a result of this failure of leadership."

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