Why only 196 Adoptions in 2004??

The head of my Agency said the same thing. Her words were "They don't want to release their kids". larryman, you'll probably get blasted on this group for what you said but I agree with you 100%. I believe it is a cultural and religious belief in the Philippines that a child is better off in the country he was born than to be adopted by a foreigner. Even if adoption means going from poverty to a prosperous life. I attended a mass when I was there where the priest scoffed at the idea that there were overpopulation problems in the third world. He said that people should have as many children as they wish even if they don't have the money to feed them. I'm not trying to downgrade the cultural or religious beliefs but I think it's important to understand the culture and why they believe the way they do. Approaching your adoption with as much knowledge as possible is the only way to go about it.

My wife is Filipina born in the Philippines and a 100% true practicing Catholic. This is definitely not the case. Just take a look at how many applications submitted to the many foreign embassies and consulates in the Philippines on contract workers and how many attempts from the Philippines to enter other industrial nation illegally. Most ordinary Filipinos are stuglling hard for the very basic day to day survival. This unfortunately is the very fact that high authority refuse to admit.The child is better off in a country where he was born is a controlling belief coming from the authorities, NOT FROM ORDINARY FILIPINOS for they know well enough how hard it is for their family to survive in the Philippines without exploring other alternatives for the sake of their very basic livelihood.

I think we basically agree. My wife is a Filipina as well so we share a common joy! I was just expressing my belief that certain authorities in the country feel this way. In fact the friends and family we spent time with were thrilled with our idea to adopt a Filipino child.

My wife's family in the Philipiines as well as all of her relatives are also absolutely thrill about us adopting a child.They all share the common feeling of why it takes so long and so many red tap in between. In fact, my wife's aunt who is a nun at a congregation in the Philippines whose mission is for the care of homeless children they very reluctantly turn down so many requests from birth parents who have no means to raise their kids. If one can think of all the tough sacrifices ordinary Filipinos have to put up in leaving their homeland for better job opportunities and remitting money home to feed their family, is it better for most of the have not in the country to have the younger generation search for living abroad ?

ICAB has posted statistics on their web site. [url]http://www.skyinet.net/~icaba/page54.html[/url] The number is actually 249 regular Intercountry adoptions for 2004 not 196 while relative adoptions was 132. Independent placement was 23. The total for 2004 was 496. Now while this is better news, I don't see anyway to determine performance because there is no number for denials. If there were, we could apply basic math to get a sense of how many applications carried over from a backlog. Maybe someone better at analysis can come up with a way based on the matching stats? It gives me a headache right now. Just for fun... (Gosh not much fun in the process is there?) I compared the approximate total number of adoptions from China per capita and the total number of adoptions from the Philippines and came up with the same approximate number per capita, 1 child under the Intercountry process for every 150,000 people. Kinda throws some assumption out the window. In addition, notice there is a number for Foster Adoptions I had thoughts of pursing this as a process and now I am curious to know what country(s) this is possible. My first guess is maybe it is Australia because I read there was a problem recognizing adoptions when couples married and adopt the spouses children. There is some sort of custody that takes place because they have weird rules. Clues҅. anyone? You know. Maybe ICAB actually reads stuff on the internet. Johnny

There are lies, **** lies, and statistics. ICAB should post all their data. Not just the pretty stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if ICAB is lurking on the web. They did create a website after all.

Ouch!... I realize that waiting and being unsure of the outcome is difficult to the point of torture, believe me.... but thats rude҅.Think about it! ICAB is very visible and would not be able to get away with fixing the numbers. In my many years involved in the process, I have never come across any evidence that would imply ICAB is anything but squeaky-clean. There are too many checks and balances. Publishing up-to-date numbers that they can be so easily accessed is a step in truly being transparent. Now if we can just get ICAB to be transparent to PAPs about the process it could relieve a lot of stress. I suspect that ICAB's hands are tied. I'm sure they can push to get more worker bees to help shuffle the paperwork but they can't go beyond the limit so what would be the justification? Read through the rules (Intercountry Adoption Law of 1995 or Republic Act 8043) through the link on this page. [url]http://www.gov.ph/faqs/adoption.asp[/url] You will find they are limited to 600 per year for the first five years. Thus setting the number of personnel ICAB can have in it's organization. I was under the impression that it is reasonable for one (1) social worker to handle up-to 50 cases a year. I don't know if there are any amendments since the board changed or if there are any executive orders or presidential decrees to adjust the number. If there were none, I would suspect unless ICAB provides evidence that the number should be increased due to the number of children available and waiting then I think the 600 number would still be in effect. I'm not sure if ICAB could argue that it is in the best interest of the children for them to be placed as soon as possible as the central authority. I say this because it may be a conflict of their mandated rules. As a social worker, well is obviously the necessary thing to do. As an adoptive parent, I would suggest using the U.S. policy prioritizing the I-600/a process for adoption/orphans as an example. The policy and justification of the policy could be cited in an argument to get additional help and moneys. Moneys could easily be addressed in the form of increased fees. $150 would generate P5M. IҒm sure every PAP would accept the additional fee but more than that it just makes since to get the children in a home. Johnny

According to the US State Department website, it's been trending down since about 1991, when closer to 400 adoptions per year were facilitated. I don't know the reason for this, but it would make an interesting study.

Looks like we have another angry participant having toasted experience with ICAB. Are those statistic posted by ICAB reliable ? Maybe. Can anybody guarantee they are most reliable !

I just wanted to add a tidbit of info. My husband and I are in direct contact with the largest orphanage in the Philippines, and they just told us that all but one of the children that were in with our daughter (we picked her up one year ago) are now gone - either their families were able to care for them now, and came to get them, or they were adopted. That means that the LARGEST orphanage only has one child between the ages of 2 to approx. 5, and possibly only have one infant who is handicapped. The authorities have been working very hard to keep families together there, so they have classes to inform parents on how to care for their families, including getting a job. So, more families are able to just have their child cared for for a while, and then be able to come back and get them when they are able. There are still hundreds of children up for adoption, but most likely they are all over the age of 5. Jen

I think that is great Jen. (Truly) Good news for the families, the orphanage and the child/ren of the families however, it sound more like a halfway house for extremely impoverish families rather than an orphanage? What about other orphanages that dont accept non-orphans? Moreover, what about the children that are qualified for the Intercountry program? And what about the children that should be qualified for the program but due to semantics are ruled out and deemed not qualified? Reading the posts on this forum it is obvious that the adoption policies as well as the Laws need reform. The rules are not structured to real life situations. Yes, the people working the system deserve a pat-on-the-back for the effort they put forth, but painting a picture that all is well, does not address the problems. My opinion is that many children are cared for that are not under the Jurisdiction of the Social System. They may actually be according to the rules, but people that just care for the children in need of a home, are not concerned about Jurisdiction. The adoptive families of these children that cross boundaries are forced, to either take the long road of domestic adoption to legalize the relationship in the eyes of the Judicial System and the policy makers or they simply use alternative means to keep their family together. Since these rules have been enacted, families have been kept apart. I assume there are no stats published to say how many people use alternative methods rather than follow the rules. It takes people like Larryman with enough integrity to follow the rules for the system to be exposed for what it actually is. ғA failure DonԒt get me wrong Im not saying ICAB is a failure, IҒm saying the system fails the children. When Chuck posted this thread, I was not sure of the statistics. I didn't thing to rummage through ICAB's web site because I had never seen any stats except for outdated ones on the State Department's web site and it is not all inclusive. I don't know when they posted it. There are three categories of numbers; I may have been hasty in assuming that there were 496 total adoptions because the category is Children cleared for InterCountry AdoptionӔ it does not say completed adoptionsӔ. It is a little to involved for me to try to analyze the numbers. Although the number of Matched children is 427 so how could it be that 496 were completed? Also, the number total of matched applications says 369 so how can it be that 496 were completed. Some one figure this stat chart out please! Dianes 1991 date is too far back, the rules, which apply today only, go back to 1995 for ICAB and were revised in 1998. I think this is the reason we see the jump in the number in 1999. Correct me if I wrong guys, but Both Chuck and Larry are of the opinion that the hold up is due to preference. I think they just need more help and reform. Johnny

I really question ICABs numbers. Especially since the numbers have been trending downwards since 2002. For it to double in 2004 seems highly unlikely. I found the number 196 on quite a few websites. By the way this is the number of immigrant Visas issued to the US so I'm not sure what other countries add up to. I believe Canada only receives about 50 kids from the Philippines a year and they're the next biggest after the US. [url]http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/stats/stats_451.html[/url]

I may be missing something, but how do we know that ICAB's "Children cleared for inter-country adoption" refers to children who have been sent to homes out of the country? I would have thought that this category simply referred to children who had progressed from being available for local adoption, to regional, provincial, national, and had not been adoptable at any of those levels -- and so were now available for international adoption. Diane

No Johnny. Our adoption is being held in the "dark".

I doubt ICAB will ever read stuff posted on the internet, Johnny.