Philadelphia-Area Nonprofit Illustrates the Changing State of International Adoption

In Era Ending in International Adoption, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Pearl S. Buck International, a nonprofit that for years has worked to find homes for children unlikely to be placed in families through typical adoption agencies, has terminated its international adoption operations.  The change is portrayed as a sign of the times – a perfect storm of legal, economic, and cultural factors now stifling international adoptions.  According to the story,

A paradigm shift is taking place in countries across the globe, including the United States, that have enacted more restrictive adoption policies. As a result, the international adoption rate has plummeted by 70 percent since 2004 and squeezed out some long-established programs, such as the one founded by Buck.

“What we’re seeing is the end of an era,” said Adam Pertman, president of the Massachusetts-based National Center on Adoption and Permanency and author of the book Adoption Nation. “International adoption as we’ve come to know it is morphing into something new and something different and something that involves far fewer children.”

Factors reportedly contributing to the legal restrictions that are reducing international adoptions include nationalism, economic improvement in some countries that historically have welcomed international adoptions, and concern over past illegal trafficking in babies and profit-motivated corruption.

Also mentioned is the United States’ ratification of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.  The story continues:

The new regulations, which advocates support, have added extra financial burdens in the way of more social workers as well as more costly insurance and fees. For Pearl S. Buck International, the confluence of higher costs and fewer children led to the program’s demise, CEO Janet Mintzer said.

“You can’t really support an adoption program when you have seven adoptions,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense for us as an organization.”

For Pearl S. Buck International, the new reality means that it “will continue its mission of serving children through child sponsorship and running cultural exchange programs” with foreign countries.

JRB