Adoptions in Uganda on the rise
Uganda has become the most important country when it comes to offering children for adoption. One of the world's poorest countries also has one of the highest global birth rates. Many parents give up their children because they cannot afford them any more. They bring them to adoption agencies, which often put them into foster homes until new parents can be found.
Uganda has replaced Russia and China as the world's adoption centre, mainly because it is easier to get children there and there are not so many administrative hurdles.
While many in Uganda support such a policy, there are others who say adoptions are carried out too quickly. Apart from that, many poor parents don't understand what adoptions mean and think they can get their children back later.
In many cases, however, Westerners who adopt a Ugandan child are able to give them a better life than they would have in Africa.
The growth of the adoption industry has led to the founding of a number of new agencies and organizations. Workers of these organizations visit slums and poor areas of cities in order to talk to couples who are willing to give up their children.
Related Articles
Words
- administrative = here: about management and organization
- adoption = when you take someone else’s child into your home and become their parents
- afford = to have enough money
- agency = organisation that provides a service
- apart = also
- birth rates = the number of babies born per one thousand people; usually measured in percent
- carry out = do
- foster home = private home that looks after children without parents
- found = start something new
- global = worldwide
- however = but
- hurdle = problem, difficulty
- mainly = mostly
- offer = present, give to someone
- policy = way or method of doing something
- replace = here: to exchange the position with someone else
- rise = to go up
- slum = part of a city where very poor people live in huts; without running water and electricity
- support = to be for something