After peaking in 2004, the annual number of international adoptions to the United States has fallen by 94% as of 2023, according to the most recent available U.S. State Department data.

The State Department recorded 22,988 international adoptions to the U.S. in fiscal year 2004. That number dropped to 1,275 in fiscal 2023.

International adoptions have also decreased as a share of all adoptions in the U.S.

Since 1999, most international adoptees to the U.S. have come from one of five countries: China (29%), Russia (16%), Guatemala (10%), South Korea (8%) or Ethiopia (6%). All five have moved to limit international adoptions in recent years:

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22 juli 20:17
Tandartsen naar de rechter vanwege onvrede over tarieven

Jan BraaksmaMaarten van Poll
In het kort
Tandartsen en orthodontisten vinden de nieuwe maximumtarieven voor hun sector te laag.
Eerder maakten psychologen al met succes bezwaar tegen het besluit van de toezichthouder.
Een hoogleraar verwacht na jaren van bescheiden prijsstijgingen meer van dit soort rechtszaken.

Tandartsen en orthodontisten vinden de nieuwe maximumtarieven voor hun sector te laag. Foto: ANP
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Lees het volledige artikel: https://fd.nl/samenleving/1563405/tandartsen-naar-de-rechter-vanwege-onvrede-over-tarieven?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nieuwsbrief&utm_campaign=fd-ochtendnieuwsbrief&utm_content=1352426_52160_20250723&utm_term=A

H. R. 4732

To expand the definition of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” to include the recruitment, harboring, transportation, transfer, or receipt of orphaned, abandoned, or minors living in public or private residential facilities, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 23, 2025

A 14-year-old girl sought to change her surname from her father's to her mother's in the birth certificate following her parents' divorce. 

The Calcutta High Court has directed municipal authorities to issue a revised birth certificate to a minor girl, allowing her to replace her father's surname with her mother's. 

A Bench of Justice Gaurang Kanth held, "The identity of a child, including her surname is an integral part of her personal development and autonomy. Courts have consistently held that when the change in name or surname does not adversely affect any legal or statutory right of a third party and is sought in furtherance of the child's best interest, such change ought to be allowed. 

In light of the above facts and the applicable legal position and having regard to the welfare of the minor child, which is of paramount consideration, this court is of the view that prayer of the petitioner deserves to be allowed.

Last summer, when “Susan” landed at Gatwick Airport from Nigeria with a newborn baby in her arms, she expected to return quietly to her family life in West Yorkshire. Instead, she was arrested on suspicion of child trafficking. Now, her name sits at the heart of a disturbing Family Court case that has exposed one of Nigeria’s most insidious exports: baby farming.

According to BBC, Susan, whose real name has been withheld to protect the child at the center of the case had been living in the UK since June 2023 with her husband and other children. She worked as a care worker and had legal residency. Before leaving for Nigeria, Susan told her GP she was pregnant. There were no signs of pregnancy, and blood tests revealed a tumor and not a baby. Despite doctors’ concerns, she refused further treatment and clung to an unlikely story: her pregnancies had always been undetectable, and this one was no different.

In June 2024, she left the UK, claiming she wanted to deliver the baby in Nigeria. Weeks later, she returned with an infant girl, “Eleanor.” But the narrative she spun quickly fell apart.

When DNA tests showed no biological link between the baby and either Susan or her husband, her explanation pivoted: it was an IVF baby, she claimed, that is conceived with donor egg and sperm. To prove her story, she submitted shaky documentation: a forged IVF record and a suspicious birth certificate from a Nigerian hospital. The accompanying photos, taken in what appeared to be a delivery suite, were blurry and inconclusive.

The woman in them was faceless. One photo featured a naked woman with a placenta between her legs. “Someone had given birth,” said the Nigerian doctor who signed the document. “It just wasn’t Susan.”

Every year, from October to Chhath, she stays in Bihar to try to find her parents and family. She says that now everyone in Bihar seems like her parents. Savita, Patna
Forty-five-year-old Sheila from Belgium has been coming to India for the past five years in search of her estranged parents. Every year, she spends Diwali and Chhath in Bihar, searching for a family with her parents. Every year, someone appears as a family member, but their joy turns to despair when the DNA test is conducted. After the DNA test, the search begins again. She runs from office to office, from adoption agency to organization. Yet, she remains resolute. She says that now everyone in Bihar resembles her parents.Sheela was separated from her family in 1981. She wandered to Patna. The police kept her in a priest's mansion. The priest's mansion housed the state's first adoption agency. At that time, it was only known that she was from Muzaffarpur. From there, Sheela was adopted by a Belgian couple. She says that people there taunted her because of her appearance. Friends would say she was from outside. These words always hurt her. Her adoptive parents educated her well, and she grew up to become a teacher. She is married to a local businessman. Her husband's name is Avin. She has three children. Whenever she comes to Patna, she brings her childhood photo with her. She identifies people by showing them her childhood photo.Sheela has been connected to Indian culture and festivals. Sheela explains that although she grew up abroad, Indian culture and its festivals always felt like her own. She enjoyed interacting with and being with Indian people in Belgium. She learned about the significance of Chhath through social media. She came to Patna with her children to celebrate Diwali and Chhath. In 2022, she found her parents, but the DNA test didn't match.
Sheela was overjoyed on the 2022 Chhath festival. After three years of searching, she finally found her parents in the form of the late Toofani Paswan of Chamrua, Mansoorpur, Muzaffarpur. Her parents had passed away, but she met her brother and sisters. Their families also embraced them. However, the DNA didn't match, and she returned to Belgium disappointed.

Amsterdam - The swimming pool intern suspected of raping eleven young children came to the Netherlands from Haiti as a child, where his adoptive parents raised him. He was involved with numerous organizations and regularly excelled.

According to the Public Prosecution Service, twenty-year-old JL abused fourteen children between the ages of 4 and 6 during swimming lessons between the end of August and the beginning of December last year in Zelhem, Gelderland.

According to the indictment, eleven victims were raped, as emerged on Tuesday during an initial preliminary hearing in the Zutphen court.

L. turns out to be an athletic young man. He was involved with several clubs in his region, such as the Achilles gymnastics club in Hengelo. He was already a great talent as a young teenager. A local media outlet wrote about the athletic young man after a competition: "J. was in top form that day; it was as if he could perform magic. Everything just worked out."

MUMBAI: Bombay high court refused to direct the Central Adoption Resource Agency (Cara) to approve the adoption of an American child by an Indian Muslim couple. It observed that neither the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act nor the Adoption Regulations allow the adoption of a child of foreign citizenship unless the child is ‘in need of care and protection' or ‘in conflict with law.'
"There is no fundamental right of the petitioners to adopt an American child, which child does not fall within the applicability of the JJ Act and the regulations thereunder even if he is born to Indian parents.
 

Neither is there any violation of any fundamental right of the child of American nationality to be adopted by an Indian citizen," said Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Neela Gokhale on Wednesday.
They dismissed a petition by the childless couple from Pune who sought to adopt a child (now six years of age) from their California-based relatives. They brought him to India in Oct 2019.
As they are Muslims with no law for adoption, they approached the district court under Section 56 (2) for adoption from ‘a relative'. Cara, the regulator for in-country and inter-country adoption, refused to register them as prospective adoptive parents. They moved the high court, saying without valid adoption the child's stay in India may become illegal.
Their advocate, Shirin Merchant, argued that Section 56(2) provides for the adoption of a child from a relative. She said Cara is unnecessarily treating the adoption under AR 23 for NRI, OCI, and foreigners.

Cara's advocate, Y S Bhate, said the JJ Act and AR do not apply to the adoption of a child who is an American citizen by Indian parents.

The judges said the JJ Act applies to all matters concerning ‘child in need of care and protection' and ‘child in conflict with law'. Admittedly, the child does not fall within these definitions. "Hence, provisions of the Act… do not apply," Justice Gokhale wrote.

The judges said Section 56 (2) cannot operate independently of the Act. A relative must first relinquish the child for it to be a ‘child in need of care and protection'. Also, AR 23 provides for post-adoption procedures for bringing a foreign child adopted by Indian parents to India. The petitioners were "always at liberty to adopt this legal and regular procedure."

While Merchant insisted that the adoption be treated as in-country adoption provided under the AR, the judges said it has to follow the parent Act.

They said the petitioners' "predicament" can be resolved by Cara's suggestion to apply for Indian citizenship and following surrender by biological parents to follow the JJ Act or adopt the child in US.

The petitioners "were not inclined to accept the same".