Last year, there were 4,206 Chinese adoptees. During the same seven-year period, the number of international children adopted by Americans almost doubled, from 9,050 to 15,774. The current crisis in Kosovo has prompted hundreds of calls to the state department about the possibility of adopting war orphans, according to the Associated Press. But authorities discourage adoptions-at least for the next few months. We do not advocate for international adoption of refugee kids, but rather to reunite them with relatives so that they are in a safe, familiar environment.
International adoption is complex, expensive and different in each country of origin.
The confusion and paperwork vary from country to country. And the U.S. medical community is just beginning to recognize that there is a gap between most pediatricians' knowledge and the needs of these families. Some of the early work in this area came out of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota. In 1991 researchers there called for internationally adopted children to be routinely screened for hepatitis, tuberculosis, parasites, cytomegalovirus, HIV, retarded growth, hearing and vision problems and other medical conditions. Screening for these conditions was not common practice at the time.