Sources of Children and Adoptive Parents
The most common countries for international adoption by parents in the United States for 2007 were China (5453), Guatemala (4728), Russia (2310), Ethiopia (1255), South Korea (939), Vietnam (828) Ukraine (606), Kazakhstan (540), India (416) Liberia (353), Colombia (310), and Philippines (265).(U.S. State Department) Other less common countries include Bulgaria, Norway, Australia, Kenya, Canada, Haiti, and Poland. These statistics can vary from year to year as each country alters its rules; Romania, Belarus and Cambodia were also important until government crackdowns on adoptions to weed out abuse in the system cut off the flow. Vietnam recently signed a treaty openings its doors for adoption. Guatemala has recently closed its doors.
Although Nepal has not closed it doors for adoption, the United States government has suspended adoptions from Nepal. Documents that were presented in support of the abandonment of these children in Nepal have been found to be unreliable and circumstances of alleged abandonment cannot be verified because of obstacle in the investigation of individual cases.
China is the one major country where girls adopted far outnumber boys; due to the Chinese culture's son preference in combination with the official planned birth policy implemented in 1979, about 95% of Chinese children adopted are girls. Although India also has a noticeable excess of girls being adopted (68% girls), most other countries are about even. South Korea is the one country that has a relatively large excess of boys being adopted; about 60% are boys. This is a switch from the 1980s, when most Korean adoptees (about two-thirds) were girls.
Adoption from Ethiopia has become an increasingly popular option for adoptive families in the US. According to the U.S. Department of State, there were 441 orphans visas issued to Ethiopian children in 2005, and 732 issued in 2006.
Read more about this topic: International Adoption
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