How many adoptions were there in 2010

For more information on the adoption statistics, please view our annual adoption report, which is located under the publication section of this website. The U. Government fiscal year begins on October 1 and ends on September You are about to leave travel. Department of State. Links to external websites are provided as a convenience and should not be construed as an endorsement by the U. Department of State of the views or products contained therein.

If you wish to remain on travel. Cancel GO. Skip to main content. Gov Travel. Passports International Travel U. Stay Connected. Law Enforcement. Intercountry Adoption. Print this page Click to open the social media sharing options Share. Overview Adoption is one of the options used to provide permanent care for children who are unable to live with their families.

Featured reports. Adoptions Australia —20 Publication 17 Mar Main country of origin From —12 to —20, the main country of origin for intercountry adoptions varied between the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea. Median waiting time for families adopting from overseas has been less than 3 years since — We also found that embarrassment can spur countries to halt international adoptions.

After bad publicity during the Seoul Olympics, South Korea — which had been allowing adoptions to the U. Adoption scandals can also lead countries to rethink international adoptions. There have been rare cases, too, where a child was kidnapped and put up for adoption. Although infrequent, such incidents bring bad press, and with it pressure from international child welfare organizations like UNICEF and and Save the Children to improve — or shut down — foreign adoptions.

The Hague Convention on International Adoption was supposed to resolve such problems by making adoption safer and more straightforward. This global agreement, which countries signed by , creates uniform regulations for adoptions worldwide. But rather than encourage foreign adoptions, many experts argue that the convention has contributed to their decline. Even after Vietnam ratified the international adoption convention in , the U.

Vietnamese adoptions of special needs children to America reopened in Rigorous international regulations have also made adoptions more expensive by imposing fees on agencies, adoptive parents, orphanages and countries. We believe that rising costs — which may have increased up to 18 percent in some countries — will lead to a decrease in the number of international adoptions.

But our book finds powerful — if uncomfortable — arguments in favor of foreign adoptions. When the child of a desperately poor family is taken in by parents from a wealthy country, the material benefits to that child are significant.