How Ethiopia’s Adoption Industry Dupes Families and Bullies Activists - Kathryn Joyce - International - The Atlantic
►http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/12/adoption-inc-how-ethiopias-industry-dupes-families-and-bullies-activists/250296
Adoption searchers — specialized independent researchers working in a unique field that few outside the community of adoptive parents even know exists — track down the birth families of children adopted from other counties. In Ethiopia, searching has arisen in response to a dramatic boom in international adoptions from the country in recent years. In 2010, Ethiopia accounted for nearly a quarter of all international adoptions to the U.S. The number of Ethiopian children adopted into foreign families in the U.S., Canada, and Europe has risen from just a few hundred several years ago to several thousand last year. The increase has been so rapid — and, for some, so lucrative — that some locals have said adoption was “becoming the new export industry for our country.”