Legal and Policy Issues Affecting Intercountry Adoption Practices

The end of world war ii in the late forties marked the beginning of the practice of formally adopting children internationally on a large scale. The practice is called intercountry adoption (ICA) and at least one million children have been adopted internationally since the early days, as the practice truly took off in South Korea in the mid-fifties. Half of all international adoptees have joined U.S. families (Selman, 2012). For children, the impact of ICA has been profound; the research on improvements in child development and health alone, make a strong case for the practice of ICA (Juffer & van IJzendoorn,