Adoptions gone wrong

It's not easy raising kids, whether your children have been born to you or have been adopted.  There are no statistics of which I am aware that try to evaluate one's success at raising their natural children. Estimates of failed adoptions range from 10 to 15%. These estimates are based on children adopted in America.  Now there are many children from foreign lands who are adopted by Americans.  There are no statistics of failed adoptions for these international adoptions, but I would suspect the number of failures would be higher as, in general, adoptions in this country are normally subject to varying degrees of evaluation of the suitability of the parents.  I don't think international adoptions are subject to the same degree of evaluation.

Reuters has recently published a study of a year-long investigation of failed international adoptions. It is not a pretty story.  In just about all of these cases there is no vetting of the new parents by either the current parents or state authorities.  It's almost like selling something on E-Bay.  Here are some ads used:

• "Born in October of 2000 – this handsome boy, 'Rick' was placed from India a year ago and is obedient and eager to please."
• "I am totally ashamed to say it but we do truly hate this boy!"
• "We adopted an 8-year-old girl from China… Unfortunately, We are now struggling having been home for 5 days."

These ads are usually placed on internet bulletin boards.  There are people who monitor these boards and seem to specialize in adopting kids who are living in difficult circumstances which are usually attributed to the adoptee.

I've read only the first of five articles in this study.  I may report on the other sections of the study.