African Adoption Rates are Increasing – In Africa there are many children who are neglected, either because of the shortage that occurs in the country to because people love the uniqueness of these African children.
One report said the number of African children adopted by foreign nationals from other continents has increased dramatically.
Based on the findings of the African Children’s Policy Forum (ACPF) in the last eight years, international adoption has risen by nearly 400%.
“Africa is now a new frontier for adoption between countries,” said the group based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
But many African countries do not have strict regulations to protect adopted children.
The majority of orphans adopted from Africa have at least one living parent and many of them have been sold by their own parents, the group said.
More than 41,000 African children have been adopted and taken out of their home countries since 2004, says the ACPF report.
More than two-thirds of that number in 2009 and 2010 were adopted from Ethiopia, which is now one of the countries with the highest number of adopters apart from China.
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“The interests of children are threatened when they are adopted between countries and adoption can become a large, lucrative industry with children as a commodity,” said the Africa Children’s Policy Forum report.
The group’s director, David Mugawe, said adoption in some parts of Africa had become a business.
“There is an element where adoption is now commercial. And this is a lucrative industry for some orphanages, and they are promoting adoption just to support the orphanage,” Mugawe told the BBC.
He said large sums of money were sometimes paid to prospective parents.
“There is a woman who works with the US Embassy in Uganda and she cites figures between $ 10,000 and $ 30,000,” Mugawe said.
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According to the ACPF, Ethiopia has more than 70 adoption agencies, including 15 that only refer children to families in the United States.
Most of the African children go to the US. In 2010 alone, more than 11,000 children from 100 countries were adopted by American parents.
International adoption is also popular in Nigeria, Congo, South Africa, Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Uganda and Burkina Faso.
People who want to adopt children are now turning to Africa because of changing patterns and laws in other countries that have resulted in a reduced number of children who can be adopted.
Countries such as China, South Korea, Guetamala, Russia, Romania and Ukraine have tightened their eligibility regulations for prospective foster parents and closed or restricted adoptions from abroad.