For Children in Orphanages, International Adoption Must Continue

For thousands of children around the world, international adoption is still their last, best chance of growing up in a family — not an institution.

Before pursuing international adoption for a child, we believe it is the ethical responsibility of every organization working in adoption to first seek a stable, loving home for that child in the country and culture of their birth.

We advocate for in-country adoption in every country where we work, and every year, we now help more children come home to families in their birth country than to families in the U.S. through international adoption.

In recent years, we have also celebrated as more and more countries have embraced in-country adoption as a path for children growing up without families of their own. We also celebrate the number of children who, through family strengthening and preservation initiatives, are now able to grow up in the loving care of their birth families in many countries across the globe. In countries where poverty may have once compelled families to relinquish their children for adoption, more and more families are receiving the support and resources they need to become stable and self-reliant — and to independently care for their children.

While we continue to champion efforts to reunite children with their families, and help children join families through in-country adoption, we cannot ignore the thousands of children who remain left behind — growing up in orphanages.

Through the years, Holt has developed robust family strengthening programs in numerous countries, and every year, we help thousands more children stay in the loving care of their families than we help children join families through adoption. In 2023 alone, our generous donors helped over 34,890 children grow and thrive in their birth families through services ranging from food, medical care and educational support for children to job skills training and small business microloans for parents.

We are proud to work alongside governments, in-country partners, ministries, social services organizations and individuals who share our passion and our vision for a world where every child has a stable, loving home.

But our vision is still just that — a vision of hope for the future.

Children Still Need International Adoption

Despite our collective efforts, we still unfortunately live in a world where not every child can remain in the loving care of their birth family, or even join an adoptive family in their country of birth. Until we live in that world, we at Holt stand committed to doing everything we can to continue international adoption for those children who still need this unique pathway to the attentive, nurturing care, sense of belonging and unconditional love and devotion that only a permanent family can provide.

Few would question the fact that every child needs and deserves a loving, devoted family to nurture their growth and guide them through life — to give them what even the most well-staffed and well-resourced orphanage or even the best, most loving foster family can’t give them. Permanency.

But as more and more children find permanency through family preservation or domestic adoption in their countries of birth, some have concluded that children no longer need international adoption to have a family of their own.

And that is simply not the truth.

The Children Left Behind

Around the world, thousands of children are growing up in orphanages, group homes and foster homes with no foreseeable plan to go home to an adoptive family. And overwhelmingly, these children have one thing in common: they are either older in age, part of a sibling group or have special medical or developmental needs.

These are the children who stay behind as younger, healthier children join families in their countries of birth.

Progress takes time.

In many countries, adoption continues to face a strong stigma, especially non-relative adoption. And unfortunately, even countries that have embraced adoption have yet to embrace adoption of children with special needs. In many countries, a strong and enduring stigma continues to surround special needs like Down syndrome, cerebral palsy or HIV — and both children and adults with these special needs continue to face discrimination in their everyday lives.

Tragically, it is this stigma and lack of understanding that compels some families to relinquish or abandon their children in the first place. In other cases, families living in poverty simply don’t have the resources to provide costly medical care — and they hope, by relinquishing their child, that he or she will receive the lifesaving care they need.

Across the globe, Holt’s on-the-ground staff is doing everything they can to reunite children living in orphanages with their birth families. In fact, before ever pursuing adoption for a child, we always seek to reunite children with their birth families, whenever possible.

In just the last few years in Cambodia — a country with one of the highest rates of children living in orphanages due to poverty — Holt has piloted a program to help reintegrate children back into their families. In some cases, these children have spent years in an orphanage, and the process of locating their family, re-establishing ties, and then developing a long-term plan for stability has been both long and involved.

 Today, over 95% percent of children who join families internationally through Holt are either older than age 5, part of a sibling group or have a least some minor special needs.

While the families involved still struggle with poverty, the Holt Cambodia team now has a small number of successful reunification cases. But while we continue to champion efforts to reunite children with their families, and help children join families through in-country adoption, we cannot ignore the thousands of children who remain left behind — growing up in orphanages, without the love and care that every child needs to grow and thrive and reach their full potential in life. Children who cannot wait for the long, slow process of change — for the stigma of special needs to fade, for economic development to reduce the rate of abandonment or for governments to change their laws and practices.

In Korea, the stigma of unwed motherhood remains so firmly entrenched that single mothers are shunned by their families, struggle to find jobs and not only they, but also their child face discrimination in nearly every facet of their lives. It’s no wonder that even in one of the most economically prosperous countries in the world, single mothers and unwed couples continue to relinquish their children for adoption.

Some of these children may be adopted domestically in Korea. But if they have any kind of special need — even just low birth weight or other minor conditions — their odds of joining a family in their birth country are very unlikely.

These are the children who still need international adoption to have a family.

In Korea, and in other countries where the stigma of single motherhood remains strong, Holt has helped develop programs to empower single women to parent their children. Working with local partners, we help equip them with the job skills training, counseling and parenting support they need to cope with the stigma, and to independently care for their children. Since Holt Korea began the single mother program in 2005, the percentage of women in the program who are choosing to parent their children has grown from 10-20 percent to over 70 percent.

We absolutely celebrate this progress.

Over the past decade, we have also celebrated as more and more families in the U.S. have opened their hearts and homes to the children who cannot remain with their birth families or join adoptive families in their country of birth. Every year, the vast majority of children coming home to families through international adoption have some kind of special need — whether a cleft lip, developmental delays from living in institutional care or something more serious like a life-threatening heart condition.

As families learn about the children who remain in care, more and more families are also opening their hearts to older children and sibling groups. Today, over 95% percent of children who join families internationally through Holt are either older than age 5, part of a sibling group or have a least some minor special needs.

Where Holt Stands

It’s clear that many families in the U.S. will adopt the children who now need international adoption to have a family. And yet, fewer and fewer children join families every year.

In recent years, the cost of fees and expenses required to adopt a child have increased, and this is one factor that has contributed to the precipitous decline in the overall number of international adoptions over the past two decades — falling over 80 percent since the early 2000s. But even though fees charged to a family have increased dramatically, they no longer cover the actual cost to complete an adoption. This is one big reason why so few agencies continue to do international adoption.

Together, we must work to remove barriers to adoption and advocate for policy changes at home and abroad. We must work to make adoption more affordable by growing philanthropic support for adoption, encouraging employers to help cover the cost of adoption and championing legislation that helps reimburse families who adopt.

In the coming years, we will continue to work alongside fellow organizations in pursuit of a world where every child can grow up safe and loved in the families, countries and cultures of their birth. We will also stand committed to providing post-adoption services for adoptees and their families, throughout their lives.

But until we live in a world where every child can grow up safe and loved in a permanent, loving family, we will continue to provide and advocate for ethical, child-centered international adoption.