Adoption Rate in Africa
There are more than 35,000 children sent from Africa in a surge of adoptions in the last eight years. From 2003 to 2010, more than half of the children adopted came from Ethiopia (22,282), followed by South Africa (1,871), Liberia (1,355), Madagascar (1,331), and Nigeria (1,118), this is according to adoption expert Peter Selman from Newcastle University in the UK.
Children’s rights are advocating to consider what needs should be done to protect the continent’s children at the Fifth International Policy Conference on the African Child. It is urging African leaders to seek family-based, national solutions, to care for the estimated 58 million children on the continent who have been orphaned by war, famine, and disease. South Africa and Madagascar have ratified the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and co-operation in Respect of Inter Country Adoption.
The Central Authority must ensure that adoption is in the best interest of the child. There are only 13, or less than one third of African countries which participated. The majority of the children who were adopted from Africa, go to the United States and France, which are the world’s biggest receiving countries. These two countries have experienced the greatest fall in international adoption rates in the past year, mostly due to a drop in adoptions from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The international adoption rates fall in 2011, taking the total number to between 23,000 to 25,000, down about 50% since 2004. It’s not that people don’t want to adopt from abroad, but rather, the countries are less willing to send out children. Any further reduction from Africa would put further pressure on countries still open to adoptions and will create longer waiting lists for potential parents.
There are many frustrated single individuals and couples who have been approved for adopting but are still waiting, and some even feels that they will never get the child. There are lots of people who want to adopt in Uganda and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both have recorded sharp jumps in international adoption rates in recent years. Although the doors are closed for international countries from adopting children in Africa, they should at least consider being lenient about it.
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