Here is a very interesting post that I found from Lisa over at www.adoptionshare.com

The way that the table copied onto this site, the numbers for 2006 are listed first, with the numbers for 2005 underneath.

The following data lists the number of children adopted by parents in the United States from countries outside the U.S. in 2006 and 2005. They are listed in order of highest to lowest. These numbers were recently published by the U.S. Department of State and the stats for years prior can be found on their site as well.

Fiscal Year 2006
Fiscal Year 2005


1
6,493 – China (Mainland)
7,906 – China (Mainland)


2
4,135 – Guatemala
4,639 – Russia


3
3,706 – Russia
3,783 – Guatemala

4
1,376 – South Korea
1,630 – South Korea

5
732 – Ethiopia
821 – Ukraine

6
587 – Kazakhstan
755 – Kazakhstan

7
460 – Ukraine
441 – Ethiopia

8
353 – Liberia
323 – India

9
344 – Colombia
291 – Colombia

10
320 – India
271 – Philippines

11
309 – Haiti
231 – Haiti

12
245 – Philippines
182 – Liberia

13
187 – China (Taiwan Born)
141 – China (Taiwan Born)

14
163 – Vietnam
98 – Mexico

15
70 – Mexico
73 – Poland, Thailand (Both 73)

16
67 – Poland
66 – Brazil

17
66 – Brazil
65 – Nigeria

18
66 – Nepal
63 – Jamaica

19
62 – Nigeria
62 – Nepal

20
56 – Thailand
54 – Moldova

US Department of State

After looking at the statistics, I wonder where the other 731 Ethiopian children are in the United States. Through our agency we are aware of many children who were adopted this past year. I'd bet that I could place about 10 off of the top of my head that were adopted around the same time as Bec. I think that the closest ones were about 45 minutes away from us, some all the way across the country. It is interesting to me to see how much the program has grown in one year. I'll be very interested to see how the numbers look for 2007, as our agency has let us know how popular the program has been since we applied with them in 2005. In just the past year it went up 2 spots from #7 to #5 placing 441 in 2005 to 732 in 2006. But looking at #s 1-4 the amounts of visas given seem very small.