Le istituzioni locali e il mondo associativo per la costruzione di una rete in materia di cooperazione, cultura di pace, integrazione multietnica, promozione dei diritti umani e della solidarietà fra i popoli.
18.000 foreign children have found a new family in Italy
According to the report elaborated by the “Commission of the international adoption” for the Presidency of the Council of the ministers , in these last 6 years 18.280 children coming from all over the world have found a new family in Italy. It is a growing phenomenon. The “baby boom” has been registered in the first 6 months of 2007 : the number of adoptions has been 1.676 and 329 of them only in May.
The reason for this increasing number of adoptions are not only less bureaucraticy, but also a political strategy. In fact the process of adopting have been streamlined (even if it needs 2 years for adoption), and also more countries adhere to the “Aja Convention”- the solidarity pact between governments for international adoption of abandoned or orphan children. Actually 72 countries have signed up the Aja Convention, whereas there were only 58 in 2004.
Adopted Children- Which countries do they come from? According to the report they mostly are Ukrainian (17,3%), Russian (16,9%) and South Americans (Colombia 9,2% and Brasil 7,4%).
However this year many children adopted come from Africa and Asia thanks to the Commission who has decided to favour the procedure because of the number of wars and the level of poverty in these countries.
For example this year 69 children have arrived from Cambodia, a country in which before adoption were not possible, whereas arrivals from Vietnam have quadrupled.Ethiopia is the 6th in the classification for number of adoptions.The youngest children come from Asia. Generally most part of children are 1/4 years (52%), whereas 25% is less than 1 year. Children older (11 years) come from Byelorussia.
Parents- The future Italian parents come generally from the North of Italy, even if the demand is diffused in all the country. Normally, they are 35-39 years old, without children (90,2%) and can welcome only one child (81,7%). Lombardy is registered with the highest number of adoption (3.774), then Veneto (1.945), Toscana (1.537), and Emilia Romagna (1.478). Youngest couples, less than 30 years old, are unusual (only 2,7% of wives and 0,7% of husbands) whereas older couples, more than 45 years (22,4% of husbands and 13,5% of wives) are more frequent.
