Hanoi - Sixteen Vietnamese medical and charity workers went on trial Tuesday for committing fraud in 266 adoptions of local children by foreign parents. The accused allegedly took money from adoption agencies to create fake documents enabling foreigners to adopt the children, said Ngo Tien Hung, vice president of the People's Court in the southern province of Nam Dinh.
The United States and several other countries have halted adoptions of Vietnamese children because of widespread fraud by Vietnamese adoption agencies. A revision of Vietnam's adoption law is pending in the country's National Assembly.
A report last year by the US embassy detailed a practice of falsely claiming that children had been abandoned by their parents to simplify adoption procedures. Some parents were paid by adoption agencies to allow their children to be listed as abandoned while in other cases children were given away against their parents' wishes.
The defendants face charges of "abuse of official position." If convicted, Hung said, they would face five to 15 years in prison.
The court was expected to return a verdict at the beginning of next week.
