Every year, thousands of Americans take a child into their home
that was born in another country. I'm Steve Ember with Phoebe
Zimmermann. International adoption is our report today on the
VOA Special English program, THIS IS AMERICA. Many husbands and
wives in this country want a child, but may not be able to have
one. Or, such married couples may want to add an adopted child
to their other children. Single Americans may also want to
become parents. But since the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-
seventies, the number of babies and young children who can be
adopted in this country has greatly decreased. Today, many
people are going overseas to adopt a foreign child. East Asia,
eastern Europe and Latin America have become adoption centers
for Americans. For example, thousands of Americans have adopted
children from China, Russia, South Korea, Guatemala or Romania.
More than sixteen-thousand children were brought here from those
and other countries during nineteen-ninety-nine. The next year,
the State Department sa