National Adoption Month

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In Colombia, October has been declared National Adoption Month. So, I thought I would share with you some information and statistics about Colombian adoption.

In Colombia, as of September 30, 2007, there were 34, 795 abandoned children. Of these, there were 7,386 available for adoption. The rest were in the process of being officially declared in abandonment.

The department with the greatest number of adoptable children was Santander with 724, followed by Antioquia with 710, Caldas with 630, and Valle with 628.

As of October 2007, ICBF had placed 2,242 children for adoption. Of these, only 840 were placed with Colombian families. The rest were sent to Europe and the US. Surprisingly, Italy tops the destination chart for Colombian children with 301, followed by France with 286, and the US with 224.

Colombians appear to prefer adopting young children as 40 percent of the children adopted were under 2 years of age and only 12 percent were over 10 years of age.

In an interview the director of ICBF expressed gratitude for foreign families who are willing to adopt older children, sibling groups, and those with special needs because of the inability to find homes for these children within Colombia.

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