State Department is helping with adoptions

In his USA TODAY column “Why does the State Department make it hard to adopt children from other countries?”, Chuck Johnson of the National Council (NCFA) for Adoption blamed the State Department for the recent decline in intercountry adoptions. Nothing could be further from the truth.

During our years at the department, we (and our colleagues) led international efforts to promote ethical adoptions around the world, in the face of numerous outside factors that drove adoption numbers down. The decline in intercountry adoptions reflects changing practices in many countries from which Americans had historically adopted in large numbers. Domestic adoptions have increased in some countries, including China, resulting in a decrease in intercountry adoptions. Guatemala, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nepal have all closed their intercountry adoption programs due to concerns about trafficking, rehoming and other bad practices. Russia closed its intercountry adoption program in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act. South Korea reduces the number of intercountry adoptions by 10 percent every year. On the other hand, Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan reopened their intercountry adoption programs in 2014 and 2017, after concerted efforts by the department to address their concerns, and similar efforts continue in other countries worldwide.

Thus, the accusation that the department maintains “anti-adoption policies” that are “preventing Americans from becoming parents” is offensive and wrong. The NCFA should join and support efforts to promote domestic and intercountry adoptions, in line with our shared goal of placing and keeping children in loving families.

Michele Thoren Bond

Former assistant secretary for Consular Affairs

Washington, D.C.

Susan S. Jacobs

Former special adviser to the Office of Children’s Issues

McLean, Va.