Over the last 10 years, the numbers of children who are adopted by families who live outside of the child’s birth country has more than tripled. Our increasingly globalized world is blurring the edges of racial, ethnic or national identity. No where is this phenomena more actualized than in the act of building a family through intercountry adoption. In the United States, alone, more than 20,000 children a year are being adopted from China, Russia, Guatemala, and other Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American countries.

Yet, this increase in numbers of children receiving permanency and the opportunity to
grow and develop within loving families, can be deceptive, as it represents but a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of children born into poverty or abuse, who, because of the lack of adequate adoption service infrastructure, are languishing in institutions, living on the streets, or living lives of unmitigated poverty with no opportunity to develop to their fullest potential. And unfortunately, they represent but a small percentage in comparison to the children who have died from treatable illnesses, malnutrition and neglect.

Focus On Adoption deplores the inequities and lack of a humane social service "safety net" in many countries in the world. There is no doubt that, all things being equal,it is “in the best interests of the child” to grow within their birth families and in their countries of origin. But all is not equal in many countries, where there is inadequate commitment and funding to support the majority who are impoverished, and cannot provide adequate nurturing to their children.

The increase in the numbers of children being adopted by families from other countries
has also been the cause of an enormous increase in Public Policy Controversy, leading to the Hague Convention and Treaty on International Adoption, and numerous countries changing their internal laws and policies, to regulate intercountry adoption practices. It has also led to an actual decrease in opportunity for hundreds of thousands of children who need families to ever have this opportunity, or to benefit from this opportunity early enough in their lives to escape the ravages of lack of nurture,institutionalization, malnutrition, and lack of educational opportunity.

The various issues at play in this Public Policy Controversy will be addressed by Focus On Adoption. We will research and document:

-The spectrum of Public Policy issues and philosophy regarding ICA
-The practical results of implementation of regulation in many countries
-The failure of current regulations in many countries to correct abuses and maintain
  adequate opportunity for children needing permanancy

-Advocate strenuously for Intercountry adoption to be an available opportunity for as many
 children as possible, until practical implemention of other principles*
 (family reunification, National adoption initiatives, deprivatization) are supported by
 infrastructures and funding.

-Raise public and political awareness, both in the U.S. and other countries
-Build coalitions of child advocates and Intercountry adoption advocates,
 both in the U.S. and other countries