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Hi, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world this kind of thing has been a problem, with unscrupulous people looking to make money, sometimes by lying to the birth mother. In some countries this became so prevalent that the countries shut down international adoptions entirely. In other countries, the government has stepped up its regulation of international adoptions and made it harder for people to cheat the system.

I don't believe there is a tally of these cases, since they tend to be done on an individual basis. But The Ties Program, which has been arranging home country visits for 18 years, has seen an increase in business, from 300 families a year several years ago to 500 families a year now.

Good question. The State Department keeps statistics on countries that are significant sources of international adoptions, going back to before these wars started, but the list that they sent me does not include Iraq or Afghanistan. That probably means that the numbers from those countries were low, and were put into the "other" category. But it may be possible to get them by contacting the State Department.

Also a good question, which I don't have the answer to. American couples were able to adopt children in Iran before the 1979 revolution, but since then it has been much harder for Americans to get visas to Iran, and I don't know what the current adoption laws in Iran require. Across the board, many countries that are significant adoption sources have tightened their criteria on who can adopt, but I don't know where Iran fits into this.  

Thanks for your comment. I don't think that the teenagers that I talked to necessarily felt "alone" here in the U.S. Both Natalie and Deanna said they were grateful for all they have here, and Natalie in particular said that being adopted was the best thing that had ever happened to her. For Deanna, the biggest impetus for searching out her birth family was a gut feeling she had always had that she had siblings out there. For her, finding out about them and meeting them solved an unanswered puzzle, but she too seemed well aware that her home is here with the mom and dad she grew up with.

As for adoptions from the former Soviet Union, it is true that the children from these countries are Caucasian and that held appeal for Caucasian couples who wanted children who looked like them. But Kathleen Strottman, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, says that in the past decade Americans seeking to adopt have been less concerned that the children look like them. She attributes this to a growing acceptance and openness about adoption in the U.S. -- a movement from the days when it was something to hide to a time when it is something to be proud of. And as more Americans see other Americans (including some prominent celebrities) adopting children of different ethnic backgrounds, they have become more open to doing it themselves.

Ah, thanks for weighing in on this. That rule does not surprise me, considering the emphasis on Islamic faith since the revolution. I'm sorry you were not able to pursue it.

In the case of the Hulses, Chris (Natalie's mom) contacted me to talk about an issue they'd encountered regarding citizenship - some countries continue to consider children adopted from those countries to be citizens of the birth country, even though they were adopted, moved to the US, and became US citizens. Natalie, like many others, did not know this until she began looking into visiting Russia, and was surprised to learn she was still a Russian citizen. So I started looking into the subject of adoptees seeking to return to their birth countries, and I contacted a listserv for parents of adoptees from Russia and Ukraine. My request to talk with families led Roger (Deanna's dad) to contact me. Both families were extremely generous with their time and open with the details of their lives and the adoptions, which was great.