I am considering international adoption. Our motive to adopt is both
personal and global. We want another child and feel we might as well
give one a home who needs it. However, we can have children and do not
want to make an infertile couple wait even longer because we are
adopting.

Are there more adoptable international infants (under 12 months) than
there are prospective adoptive parents?

According to UNICEF there are 50 prospective adoptive parents for
every 1 adoptable international infant. This leads to corruption and
baby selling.
What is this statistic based upon? Can you find multiple references to
this phenomena?

While there are 12.4 million orphans in India, for example, a very
small percentage of them are actually "adoptable". From what I have
heard, a lack of logistics, infrastructure and nationalism results in
a realtively small percentage of orphans being made available. This
phenomena results in there being more prospective famlies than there
are babies.

I have heard that the children who actually need homes have medical
special needs or are over the age of six. We see all of this footage
of kids languishing in orphanges when in actuality they may not even
be adoptable.  Can you back this up or refute it? Cite all sources
please. It seems like it is hard to find statistics and unbiased
persepctive on this issue. Please do your best! Thanks in advance.

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 19 Jul 2005 07:24 PDT

Hello penny777-ga

1) You asked: ?Are there more adoptable international infants (under
12 months) than there are prospective adoptive parents?

Are you looking for worldwide figures? Are you looking for information
about a specific country? You mentioned India.

2) You said, ?According to UNICEF there are 50 prospective adoptive
parents for every 1 adoptable international infant.?

Are you looking for confirmation of this statistic?

3) You referred to corruption and baby selling and asked, ?What is
this statistic based upon? Can you find multiple references to this
phenomena??

Are you looking for statistics on corruption in international adoption
and/or baby selling? Are you looking for multiple sources on this
question only?

4) You stated that you think Indian children who are available for
adoption are over age 6 and have special medical needs.

When you say, ?Can you back this up or refute it?? are you looking for
information about Indian adoptions or are you referring to ?kids
languishing in? some other orphanages?

5) Are you looking for whatever statistics or information is readily
available about international adoptions?

I can see that you have very strong feeling about the subject of
children who are awaiting adoption not being made available for
international adoption. You also said that you?re considering
adoption. I?m wondering if the information you really need is
confirmation of the general statistics as you asked for.

It seems to me that if you?re looking to adopt, the question you need
answered is ?What are the best countries for babies being available
for international adoption?? If this is so, do you have criteria for
what kind of child you?re looking for?

I?d love to work on your question but I?m feeling confused. I look
forward to your clarification.

~ czh ~

I am sorry that I haven't been able to find statistics that would
answer your question, but here's my $0.02 worth, and I hope that some
other Researcher would be able to answer your question.

It is a problem to talk about international adoptions in general,
since the conditions vary from place to place. It is correct, for
example, that Romania has frozen all international adoptions, and many
Romanian children - who could have used a good home - stay in
orphanages. This refers not only to older (or unwell) children, and
unlike India or China, also to both genders. On the other hand, I am
certain that good research work would help you find a place where
there are more infants needing a home than there are parents adopting
from these countries.

My second point is that even in the United States, there is a
situation where there are healthy infants who would not be adopted
(but placed in foster care), or be adopted by "foreign" parents. There
are, according to more than one statistical study, more adoptable
African-American infants than there are parents who'd adopt them. In
other words, this might be also a factor - some parents would like to
avoid inter-racial adoption.

And an anecdotal story to illustrate both points: 
Adoption and African American Children (in the Blog: The Republic of T.) 
<http://republicoft.typepad.com/republic_of_t/2004/07/adoption_africa.html>

Sorry to hear that Romania froze everything, but probably with just grounds.
I know a couple that are very happy with the baby boy they adopted from there.

I used to work in an orphanage in Managua, Nicaragua and there were
not enough adoptive parents at the time. I do not know what this
country's regualtions are about US parents adopting. The children
under 1 are taken care of by the state and most of the older children
are sent to convent-type places. There were children ages 1.5-17 in
the convent I worked in.