Though the number of American foreign adoptions has tripled since the early 1990s and peaked in 2004, these adoptions have dropped in the past three years, declining 15% in the last two years alone. This decline is partially due to stricter adoption policies in China and Russia, previously the top two counties for American foreign adoptions.

China, the top country for foreign adoptions since 2000, has increased waiting time for adoptions to 24 months or more. In addition, the country has experienced an increase in domestic adoptions, allowing them to restrict foreign adoptions to financially stable, healthy married couples between 30 and 50 and exclude single, obese, or unhealthy prospective adoptive parents.

Russian officials prohibited all foreign adoptions for several months this year by suspending adoption agencies and are slowly beginning to recertify them. Russia, like China, is also attempting to increase domestic adoptions within the country.

Foreign adoptions from Haiti and South Korea have also experienced drops, while adoptions from Guatemala, Vietnam, and Ethiopia have increased. However, experts expect numbers in Guatemala to decrease as the government plans to introduce new adoption regulations in response to fraud and extortion claims as part of the Hague Convention on international adoptions. While the new regulations are being put in place, Americans are urged not to initiate Guatemalan adoptions.

Some experts find this decrease in U.S. foreign adoptions from previously popular countries to represent positive changes, such as increased interest in inter-country adoptions and an investigation and awareness of new countries. Others, however, view it negatively, suggesting that the changes in China and Russia reflect a trend encouraged by international children’s organizations, such as UNICEF, to care for children within their own country, even when such services are less than adequate.

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