HCM City (VNA) – A workshop is taking place in Ho Chi Minh City on May 9 - 10 to share experience in adoption support service models of Italy.

The event, held by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Italian Commission for Intercountry Adoption (CAI), aims to provide a platform for experts, researchers, specialised agencies, sectors, and localities to seek measures for improving child adoption as well as child care, education, and protection.

Dang Tran Anh Tuan, Director of the MoJ’s Child Adoption Department, said the Party and State have issued many policies and legal regulations on child care, education, and protection to ensure children’s equal access to resources and equal enjoyment of social services. Adoption aims to ensure the best benefits for adopted children, including being brought up, cared for, and educated in the family environment and having their rights respected.

He said opinions from domestic and foreign experts will help the agencies, organisations, and individuals handling child adoption have a broader view and strengthen the capacity of studying, building, and implementing adoption support models and services. This is also a source of reference for authorities to perfect a draft decree amending and supplementing the Government’s decrees issued in 2011 and 2019 that detail the implementation of some articles of the Law on Child Adoption.

Tuan also highly valued the good results of the Vietnam - Italy adoption cooperation on the basis of the two countries’ 2003 cooperation agreement on child adoption and Hague Convention No. 33 on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.

CAI Vice President Vincenzo Starita said the countries’ cooperation programme on child adoption has helped create many new multiracial families and respect the personal identity and life of Vietnamese children.

Recording certain positive results, yet the two sides still need to address several shortcomings and difficulties to devise the best solutions for guaranteeing maximum benefits for each child who is abandoned or left without a family, he noted.

The Child Adoption Department said legal regulations on adoption in Vietnam are basically complete and match international norms while the settlement of adoption has been standardised.

So far, more than 26,000 children have been adopted domestically, and nearly 4,000 others with severe disabilities or illnesses adopted to other countries, statistics show.

At the workshop, participants pointed out the necessity of support services during the adoption process in Vietnam and the role of adoption organisations in the intercountry adoption system.

They also looked into facts of social work and support services for adoption in Vietnam, and gave suggestions on ﷽social work implementation during the adoption settlement in the coming time./.