Any look at Africa adoptions can be complicated, as this story from Nigeria proves. With international Africa adoptions all being country-specific, a lack of understanding of just how things work can cause a world of problems. In all aspects of adoption, educating yourself is the first and most important step, and trying to do adopt without going through every single on of the steps can lead to heartache.

A Nigerian-born, Canadian citizen adopted a Nigerian child, and is now... more

An early, warm wet season is being blamed for one of the worst outbreaks of Dengue Fever to hit Cambodia and the rest of SE Asia in recent history.

A British adoptive father, along with other volunteers, set up a UK Registered Charity, The Cambodia Children's... more

I'm starting today off with numbers ... the number of children adopted in a year worldwide.

Any guesses?

Somewhere around a quarter of a million would be about right -- 250,000.

Sound like a lot?

It's 1.5% of the estimated 16 million orphans placed in care each year, and 85% take place within the country of the child's birth.

In the US?

125,000, or about half of the total number of adoptions... more

Or: Why it occasionally looks like Sandra goes out of her way to annoy some people.

If you're approaching the international adoption world from somewhere out there where it all seems reasonable, clear-cut and simple, sooner or later you are bound to come up against brick walls intentionally built to make the process sound either impossible, immoral, unethical, or otherwise a generally bad idea.

As an adoptive parent, an advocate for children and for adoption, and a blogger for Adoption.com, it is my responsibility... more

Baby Safe Havens are an adoption-related hot potato of the scalding and scorching variety.

There are who love the idea and lobby long and hard in favor, while others hate everything about Baby Safe Havens and campaign strongly against.

Heated debate about the so called "Baby Moses"... more

Continuing from the previous post, where we've been following adoption-related fallout in Holland.

Citing critics that say the 'scandal' of the the adopted Indian child alleged to have been kidnapped from his birth parents, then adopted by a Dutch family is, "just the tip of the iceberg and that it illustrates the serious flaws in the system. Some go as far as to say it's no more than 'legalised child trafficking' and call for inter-country adoption... more

A radio report out of the Netherlands that is to air tomorrow, (Transmission Date: Sunday 8 July 2007) has brought together a panel to discuss international adoption.

Before getting into this, let's take a minute to look back over recent history on what we've seen of the Dutch take on international adoption.

Back in May, a story hit the... more

Continued from the previous post, where we were talking about orphans in Kashmire, and how help sometimes doesn't look like that to everyone.

There's the Marriage of Poor and Orphan Girls Foundation:

Foundation provides financial help to orphan and poor girls for conducting their marriages and shares their financial woes and worries. These marriages are conducted with simplicity, grace and accordingly to Islamic... more

One needn't tread far into the world of the anti-adoption brigade ... often not-too-cleverly disguised as Planet Reform ... to come across attempts to smear the words adoption and trafficking together into a hoped-for interlocked combo that will forever regurgitate simultaneously. Not only the words, of course, but I gather some figure they're a good place to start the business of trying to make adoption leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Offered... more

Continued from the previous post.

As politically incorrect as it may sound, as insensitive as it may appear to birth mothers or adult adoptees, the reality I know spells out quite clearly that if the world was a bit more perfect than it is today, there would be more adoptions, not fewer.

When I hear people trashing adoption ... throwing it into the same pot as trafficking and making insinuations about adoptive parents... more