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Although Fiscal Year 2002 just ended Sept. 30, the Office of Children's Issues, part of the Office of Consular Affairs in the U.S. Department of State, has already compiled and released preliminary statistics that reveal Americans adopted more than 20,000 children from other countries last year. The statistics are preliminary because some of the overseas posts that report the numbers of IR-3 and IR-4 visas issued (IR-3 visas are for orphans to be adopted abroad by U.S. citizens, IR-4 visas are for orphans to be adopted in the U.S. by U.S. citizens) have not yet reported their numbers for September, 2002. It is also important to keep in mind that not every child for whom a visa is issued is actually adopted in another country or the U.S. For final numbers of children who have actually immigrated after having been adopted or for the purpose of adoption, reference needs to be made to statistics issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) of the U.S. Department of Justice. There is usually a delay of several months before INS data are published; hence, the statistics on visas issued by the Department of State provide earlier estimates than any other U.S. government source. The Fiscal Year 2002 preliminary total of 20,099 adoptions includes 14,666 children who were to be adopted overseas and 5,433 children who came to the U.S. to be adopted. Many of the children who came to the U.S. to be adopted were "escorted" by persons other than their intended adoptive parents, often staff of adoption agencies, foreign social-service organizations, or volunteers. The higher numbers for Fiscal Year 2002 come as a surprise because of significant developments in several of the countries that depressed adoption placements. For instance, the Russian Federation put in place a new requirement that most persons wishing to adopt needed to make two trips to the country. The change was implemented because Russian officials were concerned about children in orphanages being "advertised" on internet websites. Formerly, adoption agencies could obtain photographs of children in need of families, medical records, and videos of the children and share the information with prospective adoptive parents. But some of those who had access to the information, including some intermediary companies, put information about children and their pictures on websites in an effort to attract clients. Russian officials responded by stopping the sharing of medical and other information with agencies and requiring parents to come to Russia to review medical and other information about children, and to select children. Prospective parents are then required to make a second trip to finish the process and adopt. In addition, Russian officials decided to limit the number of intercountry agencies that it would accredit to work on adoptions. The limit on U.S. agencies accredited to work in Russia undoubtedly helped depress what would have been higher numbers of placements. The People's Republic of China, the leading country on the honor roll of nations allowing its children in need of families to come to the U.S., also took steps that had the effect of holding down adoption numbers. China also decided to limit the number of agencies that would be allowed to work on intercountry adoptions. That decision, along with China's implementing of a rule that not more than five percent of all adoptions could be to single persons — a response to continued violation of China's policy regarding placements with gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender persons, helped keep adoptions from China lower than they otherwise would have been. South Korea, which has for years had a policy of artificially limiting the numbers of children it would allow to be adopted through a "quota system" put on cooperating agencies in other countries, continued to have much lower adoption numbers than in earlier, peak years. A different situation exists with Romania. Romania, which at one point was the number-one country allowing its orphans to be adopted by U.S. citizens, was number six of the top-20 countries allowing their children to be adopted by U.S. citizens in Fiscal Year 2001, with 782 adoptions. But Romania put in place a moratorium on intercountry adoptions at the insistence of the European Union. Although there were diplomatic efforts by U.S. officials to convince Romanian officials to allow children already identified and in process to be adopted by U.S. citizens, relatively few of those so-called "pipeline cases" got through. The result is that Romania is now number 15, with just 168 adoptions last year. The top 20 countries this year accounted for a total of 19,170 adoptions, 95 percent of all intercountry adoptions by U.S. citizens. They are: China, 5,123; Russian Federation; 4,939; Guatemala, 2,219; Republic of Korea, 1,779; Ukraine, 1,106; Kazakhstan, 819; Vietnam, 766; India, 412; Colombia, 334; Bulgaria, 260; Cambodia, 254; Philippines, 221; Haiti, 197; Belarus, 169; Romania, 168; Ethiopia, 110; Poland, 101; Thailand, 67; Peru, 65; Mexico, 61. The top 20 list for Fiscal Year 2002 includes Peru, after several years of little intercountry adoption activity in that country. Jamaica and Liberia, both tied at number 20 for Fiscal 2001, dropped off the list this year. No one has any estimate of what the numbers will be for the next fiscal year, but the most likely development that will impact those numbers will be the implementation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption by countries that allow their children to be adopted. Already, Vietnam has said that it will not allow adoptions except with countries that have a separate agreement with it, and only France has such an arrangement. In the most recent year, U.S. citizens received visas to adopt 766 children from Vietnam. — William L. Pierce is executive director of the U.S.A. Committee for the International Association of Voluntary Adoptions Agencies and NGOs. |
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are basically three kinds of U.S. families who decide to adopt children
from other countries: Those who are childless and so frustrated with the
way the American adoption system works they decide to go elsewhere; those
who already have children but are moved by humanitarian motives to help
give orphans overseas homes; those with connections, whether cultural
or otherwise, who would like a child from a specific country. For people
in all three categories (and the children they are adopting), there is
good news because intercountry adoptions are at an all-time high.
