Foreign adoptions by Americans plunge again

DAVID CRARY

AP National Writer

NEW YORK — The num­ber of for­eign chil­dren adopted by Amer­i­cans fell by 15 per­cent last year, reach­ing the low­est level since 1994 due largely to sharp cut­backs by China and Ethiopia, sources of most adoptees in recent years.

Fig­ures released Tues­day by the State Depart­ment for the 2011 fis­cal year showed 9,320 adop­tions from abroad, down from 11,059 in 2010 and down nearly 60 per­cent from the all-time peak of 22,884 in 2004.

Once again, China accounted for the most chil­dren adopted in the U.S. But its total of 2,589 was down from 3,401 the pre­vi­ous year as China finds itself with fewer aban­doned chil­dren and more inter­est in domes­tic adoptions.

Ethiopia was sec­ond, at 1,727 — but that was down from 2,513 in 2010. The main fac­tor was a deci­sion by Ethiopian author­i­ties to slow down the han­dling of adop­tion appli­ca­tions to reduce instances of fraud and ease a heavy work­load at Ethiopia’s youth ministry.

Fol­low­ing Ethiopia on the list were Rus­sia, which accounted for 970 adop­tions, South Korea at 736, Ukraine at 632, the Philip­pines at 230, India at 228, Colom­bia at 216, Uganda at 207 and Tai­wan at 205.

One rea­son that the over­all adop­tion num­bers have dropped so sharply in recent years is that prob­lems of fraud and cor­rup­tion prompted the U.S. — as well as other nations — to sus­pend adop­tions from sev­eral coun­tries, notably Viet­nam, Cam­bo­dia, Guatemala and Nepal.

Susan Jacobs, the State Department’s spe­cial adviser on children’s issues, said Viet­nam and Cam­bo­dia have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in reforms that will enable them to join the Hague Con­ven­tion on inter­coun­try adop­tion, a step that would allow adop­tions by Amer­i­cans to resume.

Guatemala accounted for 4,123 adop­tions by Amer­i­cans in 2008, the most of any coun­try that year. But the num­ber sank to only 32 last year as the Cen­tral Amer­i­can nation’s fraud-riddled adop­tion indus­try was shut down while author­i­ties drafted reforms.

Jacobs said she was encour­aged by Guatemala’s progress but indi­cated it might be a few more years before adop­tions from there would resume.

She was less pos­i­tive about the sit­u­a­tion in Nepal. The U.S. sus­pended adop­tions of aban­doned chil­dren from Nepal last year due to con­cerns about unre­li­able and fab­ri­cated doc­u­ments such as birth cer­tifi­cates, and thus far Amer­i­can offi­cials have not been sat­is­fied by steps to rem­edy the problems.

The last time there were fewer for­eign adop­tions to the U.S. was in 1994, when there were 8,333, and the down­ward trend has trou­bled many sup­port­ers of inter­na­tional adoption.

“This trend is not right, and it is not good for chil­dren,” said Chuck John­son, pres­i­dent of the National Coun­cil for Adop­tion. “Given the increas­ing num­ber of orphaned chil­dren world­wide, the con­tin­ued decline in inter­coun­try adop­tions means that children’s most basic needs and rights are being denied.”

John­son stressed that he and the agen­cies served by his coun­cil are opposed to any level of cor­rup­tion in inter­na­tional adop­tion. But he said the total sus­pen­sions of adop­tions often were an over­re­ac­tion that resulted in many chil­dren being raised in institutions.

John­son noted that there is sig­nif­i­cant oppo­si­tion to inter­na­tional adop­tion based on cul­tural con­cerns or national pride, but he con­tended that many who hold those views “offer no viable alter­na­tive for orphaned, aban­doned, and vul­ner­a­ble children.”

Jacobs, while hope­ful that the adop­tion num­bers will begin ris­ing soon, said the U.S. gov­ern­ment has no spe­cific goal in mind.

“There’s no best num­ber,” she said. “The ques­tion is how many we can do eth­i­cally and hon­estly and transparently.”

The State Depart­ment reported that 73 Amer­i­can chil­dren were adopted by res­i­dents of for­eign coun­tries last year — 31 of them went to Canada and 27 to the Netherlands.

Posted by AP News on Nov 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.