Foreign Adoptions

Foreign Adoptions
FILE - In a Tuesday, May 27, 2008 photo, an unidentified woman holds a child for adoption as she waits outside the Attorney General's office in Guatemala City. The number of foreign children adopted by Americans plunged by 27 percent in the 2009 fiscal year, reaching the lowest level since 1996. Big declines were recorded for all three countries that provided the most adopted children in 2008. In China and Russia, government officials have been trying to promote domestic adoptions. In Guatemala, a once-bustling but highly corrupt international adoption industry was shut down while reforms are implemented. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File )