The number of foreign children adopted by Americans fell by 13 percent last year, reaching the lowest level since 1995 due in large part to a virtual halt to adoptions from Guatemala because of corruption problems.
China remained America's No. 1 source of adopted children, accounting for 3,401, according to figures released by the State Department on Monday for the 2010 fiscal year. Ethiopia was second, at 2,513, followed by Russia at 1,082 and South Korea at 863.
Guatemala was the No. 1 source country in 2008, with 4,123 adoptions by Americans. But the number sank to 756 for 2009 and to only 51 last year as the Central American country's fraud-riddled adoption industry was shut down while authorities drafted reforms.
The overall figures for 2010 showed 11,059 adoptions from abroad, down from 12,753 in 2009 and down more than 50 percent from the all-time peak of 22,884 in 2004.
The last time there were fewer foreign adoptions to the U.S. was in 1995, when there were 9,679.
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5 comments:
Where are the stats? Usually State dept has them out in Dec. But they have not published them for 2010, as far as I can tell. Link to the stats please?!
Sadly, the reduction in adoptions probably doesn't mean that there are fewer and fewer orphans.
Beach Mama...Most "orphans" are not really orphans and have at least one living parent who cannot raise him/her because of POVERTY.
Orphans? True orphans? That number is probably 10% of the number given by the State Dept. Go check out Hillary Clinton's new definition for "orphan". LOL.
Anonymous is correct. In each of the major sending countries for IA, corruption (baby-buying, deceptive programs, etc.) has artificially inflated the number of adoptable children. As these corrupt practices are discovered, the number of adoptable children plunges. The decline in international adoptions is thus evidence that corruption is being discovered and eliminated. To end all corruption would decimate adoption numbers even more.
Anonymous #2:
You are correct that as countries close IA, the numbers of "adoptable" children plunges--to zero in fact.
But the number of "adoptable" children is a number different from the number of relinquished or abandoned children.
In Guatemala, closed to IA since December 2007, the number of relinquished and abandoned children has remained virtually the same. Ditto for the birth rate.
Please show me the source that proves otherwise.
Anonymous #1: I don't see anything funny about a child growing up in an orphanage, for whatever reason.
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