Vietnamese Orphans

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 12

Vietnamese Orphans

The “limited number” of orphans from Vietnam should readily be placed in adoptive homes in New Zealand. New Zealanders who hold strong views on New Zealand’s intervention in that unhappy country’s affairs, whether for or against, will probably predominate in the list of prospective foster-parents. Those responsible for placing the orphans in New Zealand homes need not, indeed should not, take these motives into account except to the extent that they bear on the applicants’ suitability as adoptive parents. Of the thousands of children who have lost their parents in Vietnam since the outbreak of hostilities, comparatively few have ended up in Saigon’s overcrowded orphanages; most have been cared for by relatives. However impoverished and however large the adoptive Vietnamese family, this is usually the best solution to the needs of the orphan. Ideally, all Vietnam’s orphans, should be cared for and brought up in Vietnam, with the generous help and support of governments, and well-wishers elsewhere, through agencies such as C.0J1.5.0. The adoption of Vietnamese children by foreign families is a “second-best”, though necessary, measure, resorted to only when no Vietnamese adoptive parents can be found.

It is a solution that can turn out happily if the child removed from its country of origin is placed with suitable adoptive parents abroad. Over the last four years about 50 Chinese orphans from Hong Kong have.been adopted by New Zealand families; and the results so far have given no cause for misgivings. The success of that scheme no doubt paved the way for the Government’s approval of Operation Child Rescue. The number of Vietnamese orphans adopted by New Zealand families may not be great; that will depend on the number of suitable parents who volunteer. If response to the appeal is maintained the number might run into some hundreds. Clearly the welfare of the children accepted must be the chief concern of the organisers of the scheme, and of the Government. Mere numbers are of little moment