This month, Ethiopia's parliament agreed to legislation banning the adoption of children by foreigners, stating that orphans and other vulnerable children should be cared for and supported by local systems, in order to protect them from abuse abroad. The shift reflects the decrease in the number of international adoptions, as developing countries become more prosperous and their systems for domestic adoption improve.
An individual can adopt a child from overseas if the child cannot be cared for in a safe environment in their own country; the adoption would be in their best interests; and the adopter has been assessed as eligible and suitable to adopt from overseas by an adoption agency in the UK. However, intercountry adoption is more complicated than adopting children from within the UK, as both UK law and the laws of the child's birth country will apply. Britain is the lowest per capita adopter of foreign children compared with any other in the western world.
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