from Vox:
____Interest in foreign adoptions had been surging, in part thanks to the mobilization of many evangelical churches, which embraced adoption as a calling, and also because natural or man-made disasters — such as the earthquake in Haiti or war and poverty in African countries such as Liberia and Ethiopia — led to increased interest in “rescuing” foreign children. Hundreds of new, mission-driven adoption organizations had sprung up, and many would-be adoptive parents became politicized as they encountered a burdensome and costly process.
Simultaneously, the hard numbers of international adoptions were steadily falling, as they had been since their peak in 2004. The overall numbers of international adoptions today are a quarter of what they were in ’04, and the decline hasn’t been greeted quietly. The State Department, which oversees international adoptions, has been besieged with complaints. Advocates warned of an “adoption cliff,” and some pro-adoption activist groups staged colorful protests, like the 2013 “Empty Stroller March,” to call attention to prospective adoptive families mired in red tape and delays.
What was happening in the adoption marketplace? Essentially, the demand for foreign babies was outstripping a shrinking supply. As US adoptive families increasingly began looking abroad, many developing nations began to scale back their adoption programs. The plunge didn’t happen all at once. It began slowly after 2004, followed by a steep drop after Guatemalan adoption law reforms in 2007-’08 effectively halted international adoptions in that country — following widespread fears of corruption and adoption-related crime.
China, long the top “sending” country, scaled back its international program in part because of increased domestic demand, as its middle class grew. Ethiopia briefly suspended its program in 2011 over concerns that children were being offered for adoption by poor people who didn’t understand Western adoption practices. And the US itself halted most adoptions from other countries, including Cambodia, Nepal, and Vietnam, over fears of corruption and baby buying.
US families are looking abroad in the first place because of changing mores and laws surrounding unwed parenthood, reproductive health care, and abortion. (During the pre-Roe era of widespread maternity homes, nearly 20 percent of unmarried white women who became pregnant relinquished their children for adoption. There have long been fewer relinquishments among unwed mothers of color, who, during those years, had the mixed blessing of being less likely to be pressured into adoption but more likely to face other forms of reproductive control and abuse.)
more:
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/21/16005500/adoption-russia-us-orphans-abuse-trump
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