International Adoption

The term ‘international adoption’ refers to the adoption of a child from one country by the residents of another country. American citizens represent the majority of international adoptive parents, followed by Europe and countries from other more developed portions of the world.

The laws of various countries vary greatly in their willingness to allow international adoptions. Some nations, such as Vietnam and China, have relatively well established laws and procedures for foreign adoptive parents to adhere to, while other nations, like the United Arab Emirates, expressly forbid adoption altogether.

Most common among foreign countries that American adoptive parents adopt children from are China, Russia, Guatemala, South Korea, and other Asian and South and Central American countries.

China is one of the largest countries where girls adopted fat outnumber the number of boys that are adopted. This is due to sons being more popular in Chinese culture, and so are kept much more often by their natural, birth parents. In China, to this day still, the amount of children up for adoption that are girls is around 95%.

Although India has a noticeable excess of girls to be adopted as well, their rate is 68%, and most other countries around the world are even between the sexes. South Korea is one country that has more boys than girls that need adopting. The boys make up more than 60% of the homeless children in Korea.

Adoption laws and policies vary greatly form one country to the next. Items such as the age of the adoptive parents, marital status, financial status and history, number of dependant children, sexual orientation, ancestry and even weight are used differently by different nations to determine which parents are eligible to adopt children from a particular country.

The necessary requirements to initiate the adoption process in international adoption also vary quite widely, and can depend on the adoptive parents’ country of origin as well. For example, while most countries require prospective parents to seek approval before adopting, in some nations, the approval can only be received fro ma state agency, and in others, approval can be granted from a private adoption agency.

In the United States, generally the first portion of the international adoption process is selecting an agency to work with. Each facilitator or agency works with different sets of nations, although some of these groups will focus only on a single country. Some countries do allow independent adoption, but this process, though les expensive, is rare for first time adoptive parents to choose.

In the U.S., a dossier is prepared that is made up of a large amount of information about the prospective adoptive parents. Usually, this dossier contains a background check, financial information, a home study review that was done by a social worker, as well as other supporting information. This dossier is then submitted to the appropriate authorities in the child’s country and is then reviewed.

After the adoption request is reviewed, an eligible child is paired to the adoptive parents and the parent is usually sent information about the child. This process is generally called a referral and a travel date is the n included which informs the parents when they may adopt their child.

Then there are usually several other requirements that must be met, such as paperwork that will make the child an official U.S. citizen. In the U.S., adopted children with at least one parent that was born in the U.S. are automatically U.S. citizens, whereas in other countries this can be a long drawn out process.

Aura Mirchandani is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory.