This commentary, co-written by retired Special Advisor to the Office of Children’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State, Susan Jacobs, and adoption and child welfare consultant Maureen Flatley for the Chronicle of Social Change, offers some explanations for the decline in adoptions to the US from other countries over the last decade or so. "There are a multitude of reasons international adoptions to the United States and all other receiving countries have declined," say the authors. "Foreign governments have moved, in many cases, to bolster their own child welfare programs. But as they make progress they have also become concerned about what they increasingly view as lax practices by U.S. adoption service providers (ASPs) and inadequate regulation by federal and state child welfare agencies."
The article notes that several national governments of sending countries have expressed concern over "practice of unregulated custody transfer, more commonly referred to as 'rehoming,'" as well as concerns over the occurrence of child trafficking in intercountry adoption, "a number of high-profile fatalities of children adopted from other countries," lax supervision and reporting of adoption post-placement by adoption agencies in the US, and the US government's failure to ensure citizenship for adoptees, among other issues. These concerns have led to several states, including Russia, Guatemala, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nepal, closing down their intercountry adoption programs.
"As these longstanding concerns grow around the world, we are now confronted with another set of circumstances that continue to undermine, rather than foster confidence in the United States as a partner in intercountry adoption and child welfare...The images of children in cages, babies sleeping on gravel under bridges and a deliberate family separation policy have done little to bolster confidence in our ability to ensure the safety, permanence and well-being of children from around the world who arrive here under various circumstances," say the authors.
Additionally, say the authors, many countries have made efforts to strengthen their domestic child welfare services. China, for example, has seen an increase in domestic adoptions, thus reducing the number of foreign adoptions.