International Adoption Statistics from Italy
“In Italy, between 2011 and 2012, international adoptions decrease by 22.8% over the previous year. For a total of 3,106 foreign minors who have been authorized to enter our country. Russian Federation (749 children, 24.1% of the total), Colombia (310, 10%), Brazil (270, 8.7%), Ethiopia (233, 7.5%) and Ukraine (225, 7.2%) are, as in 2011, the top five countries of origin of children adopted by the Italian families. These are some of the provisional figures released by the CAI (Commission for International Adoptions).”
International adoption in free fall
[West Info 1/9/13 by Roberta Lunghini]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
This made me laugh because our adoption agency constantly complained that the Italians were coming in a adopting all the babies – and bribing orphanages for said children. In retrospect, we should have been way more suspicious of our agency.
So this statistic makes you think that the Italians were NOT getting any favoritism over US PAPs? The Russia placement number is extremely high considering Italy’s population is 1/5 of the US.
The extremely high number of adoption from Italians is not necessarily due to favoritism.
In fact:
-Russia and Ukraine are closer to Italy than US (geographically but also historically and politically)
-In Italy there is an increasing presence of immigrants from Eastern Europe and several mixed couples in which a spouse is from Eastern Europe
-IVF practices in Italy are under much more restrictions than in US
-adoption within Italy is very difficult
-adoption is part of the culture of ancient Rome and of the Catholic Church (no IVF but adoption strongly encouraged).
The step decrease of adoptions in 2011 and 2012 could most likely reflect the economic crisis faced by the country recently
I don’t understand how your first bullet point negates favoritism. If they are closer politically, doesn’t that make it more possible to have favoritism? IVF practices-again why would that have anything to do specifically with Russia. The restrictions are not that great, anyway. 3 embryos are allowed for ART and their clinics advertise a lot in UK.The last 2 points also don’t specifically address Russia as a placing country.