Eng Ny, left, confronts Chan Vanna, center, who persuaded her to sell her baby to WOVA.

A

MERICAN agencies facilitating adoptions from Cambodia must pay thousands of dollars

to Government officials to expedite the approval of their clients' paperwork.

A source with intimate knowledge over several years of the foreign adoption business

told the Post money is passed to Government officials by employees of the American

agencies responsible for moving the paperwork through the system.

The three biggest recipients of bribe money are officials in the Ministry of Social

Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Council of Ministers.

The source said the amounts of money paid to officials depend on whether the Government

perceives a problem with the adoptive parents' application. On average a minimum

of $3,000 is pocketed by officials who must sign approval documents, but several

thousand dollars more might be demanded if officials are concerned about the applicants'

suitability to adopt.

He said the American facilitators operating in Cambodia are fully aware of the need

to pay bribes. When clients of the American agencies agree to accept a child available

for adoption they must immediately wire $5,500 to Cambodia. It is this money that

the facilitators hand to their employees to speed the bureaucratic process (See Phnom

Penh Post May 26).

The source said Cambodian adoption centers - including the Woman and Orphan Vocational

Association (WOVA) used as a source of babies by a number of American agencies -

have a network of village, commune, and district chiefs spread across Cambodia who

encourage poor mothers to hand their babies to the centers. These chiefs are paid

between $10 to $15 each to sign papers stating the babies were abandoned.

According to the US Embassy, 240 visas were issued for adopted Cambodian babies to

go to the United States in 1999.

He said brokers buying babies for the adoption centers are also active throughout

Cambodia, but they are not the major source of children.

On August 10 the human rights organization Licadho helped a poor mother retrieve

her baby from WOVA near Phnom Penh's Chom Chao District.

On July 19 Eng Ny, 24, handed her five-month-old son Pich Thea to a baby broker,

Hem Dany (who also goes by the names Hem Sokdavy and Mom), in exchange for $40 and

the promise that the parents who adopted her son would send money back to help her

and a nephew she is raising. Dany told Ny she would send the baby to WOVA.

Ny comes from Prey Veng Province. She was widowed after her husband died from sickness

and exhaustion when she was six months pregnant with Thea.

She stayed in Phnom Penh after her husband's death, sleeping in Wat Ounalom and begging

to feed her children. When she stopped producing breast milk she found it difficult

to feed Thea.

Ny then met Chan Vanna, 38, the biological mother of a three-year-old infant girl,

Rath Srey Pao, who was adopted through WOVA by an American family in May 1998.

It was Vanna who introduced Ny to the baby broker, Dany. On the day she gave her

baby to Dany, Ny, an illiterate, was directed by Dany to thumbprint a contract and

told she would not be allowed to see her son again.

But a few days after handing her baby to WOVA, Ny had a change of heart and wanted

her son back.

She went to Licadho to get help in retrieving Thea from WOVA.

When Ny first visited WOVA on August 7 - accompanied by a Licadho investigator -

WOVA's Manager, Tith Von, refused to allow her to enter, saying the center had not

accepted new babies since the June 15 suspension of adoptions.

On August 10 Ny and Dany were escorted back to WOVA by police. Von then allowed Ny

to reclaim her baby from the crowd of infants.

Vanna told the Post she was paid a $10 commission for introducing Ny to the baby-broker,

Dany.

Vanna said when she handed her daughter, Rath Srey Pao, to WOVA in 1998 she was given

100,000 riel ($26) and told the Americans who adopted her daughter would provide

some financial support for the rest of her life.

Pao was adopted within a week after she arrived at WOVA, but Van-na never received

more money.

Vanna showed the Post photos taken at WOVA of the American couple holding Pao on

the day they arrived to claim their adoptive daughter from the center.

Since parting with Pao, Vanna has made a meager living telling fortunes and living

at Phnom Penh's railway station.

Russei Keo's District Inspector, Tin Prosar, said the police brought the suspected

baby trafficker, Hem Dany, to WOVA in response to a complaint filed by Licadho on

behalf of Ny.

Dany had been detained at the Tonle Bassac police station on August 23, 1999, on

suspicion of child trafficking, but was freed after only a few hours when Government

officials intervened.

Prosar said when police arrived at WOVA, accompanied by Ny and Dany, they found the

baby had not yet been "sold to the foreigners"

He said because the baby was still at the orphanage there was no evidence of baby

trafficking and no grounds to press charges.

Prosar said the $40 paid for the baby was a gift to help the mother. "We cannot

arrest someone because they felt sorry and paid money to the poor," he said.

The Prosecutor, Ouk Savuth, said he will not investigate the allegations of baby

trafficking unless the police file a case with his office.

Chhim Naly, Director of WOVA (and Tith Von's daughter), strongly denied allegations

that WOVA was involved in baby buying. She said any money given to the mothers was

simply a donation to help the poor women.

The Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA) refused all requests by the Post for an interview.

But in a written response to questions, Secretary of State Nim Thoth said MoSA could

not say when the suspension of adoptions would be lifted.

In his letter Thoth did not answer questions from the Post about the nature of the

reforms to be included in the subdecree on foreign adoptions.

But a source in MoSA told the Post he expects only minor changes to the adoption

law.

One of the most significant changes under consideration is the elimination of foreign

adoption agency involvement in the paperwork process.

The source said there are officially no fees charged by the Government for adoption

and he did not understand why American agencies charged their clients up to $5,500

for Cambodian paperwork fees - though he did acknowledge it could go towards bribes

to expedite approval.

The source said he didn't understand why Americans families always used agencies

while French families handled the paperwork themselves and spent far less money to

adopt from Cambodia.

He said it is likely that Americans wanting to adopt will have to apply to MoSA themselves

once the new subdecree is passed.

An American man who came to Cambodia last year to adopt a child from WOVA told the

Post by email how distressed he was by the way the system works here.

"It wasn't until I was in Cambodia that I started to question the whole [adoption]

process. I mean, before one is actually there, one is caught up in the fervor of

accomplishing one's goal," he wrote.

"There is also this blinding presumption that the whole concept of adoption

is nothing but a good and noble pursuit accomplishing nothing but good and righteous

results at both ends of the spectrum.

"It's hard for me to describe the sick feeling I had from the very core of my

being when I realized that I was just one of thousands being herded into the [hotel]

for the same purpose. To get a baby, to go through the paperwork, to give up the

money, and to get out while you can.

"And that the process was going on before I got there and continued after I

left - this revolving door through which faceless, overfed Americans with cash bulging

from every pocket continuously entered and continuously left with their sick and

crying little Cambodian babies.

"I'm sure that the corruption exists and that the desperate poverty of an unbelievably

ravaged people is being exploited. Perhaps I'm only attempting to justify my own

participation in this somewhat revolting process, but we all need to survive somehow.

"We have our Cambodian baby now. He is loved unreservedly and heir to our fortune

and misfortune. His biological mother has her hundred bucks or whatever the deal

was she made and we all have to live as best we can the rest of our lives."

A spokesperson for Licadho said, "We are coming to the realization that whatever

end of the spectrum you are looking at, no one is doing anything [about] this."