A foreign visitor talks with children at the Que Huong Charity Center in Binh Duong Province

Chairpersons of people’s committees in provinces and cities will have the authority to decide on child adoptions, including those by foreigners, according to a bill submitted to the National Assembly on Monday.

The Justice Ministry, which has drawn up the draft bill, will act as a watchdog instead of the only agency with the authority to introduce children to adoptive parents; and issue official adoption decisions as suggested in another proposal submitted to the National Assembly in September.

The previous draft had raised concerns among local experts and National Assembly representatives over misappropriation of government power.

Adoption centers, which are now authorized to introduce children to foreign or local adoptive parents, will also be separated totally from adoption procedures as they are vulnerable to corruption, according to the draft bill.

However, the centers can receive sponsorship from foreign and local organizations as well as individuals, it added.

The draft bill also removes, in effect, two forms of adoption – “simple adoption” and “complete adoption” – as legal categories.

The simple adoption category applies to children legally bound to its biological parents via inheritance and are even allowed the choice of living with their original parents, while the “complete adoption” removes all legal bonds of adopted child to his or her biological parents.

Experts say both these forms have been abused one way or the other. For example, many families have used simple adoption, whose mechanisms are not yet established, as a means to gain easy money as government funds are granted to foster parents.

While the National Assembly’s Law Committee agreed with the drafters that the two adoption forms are removed as legal categories, it said they should regulate that adopted children must be under 16 years of age instead of 15, in accordance with age of minors decreed by the current legal system.

The bill also says the Justice Ministry will introduce later new procedures for putting up children for adoption by foreigners.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff