I know a lot of international adoptees and certainly have mixed feelings about it.

I think it is natural, as countries modernize and grow economically, that they begin to see diminishing value in outsourcing orphaned kids. It becomes something of a point of pride or pseudo nationalism.

It is also worth mentioning however that many Asian countries in particular have a cultural tradition emphasising the importance of blood heritage etc. That cuts against the viability of domestic adoption in those countries. It is an uncomfortable fact. Nations like China, Japan, and Korea, have work to do in reforming the cultural acceptance of domestic adoption.

As a general principle it seems that the preferred option on behalf of the child should always be adoption by close relative, followed by an adoptive family in their culture of origin, with international adoption as a last resort. Children deserve loving families and any of the above scenarios is better than an institutional orphange in any country.

EDIT: Obviously none of this is meant to downplay the seriousness of adoption fraud. We can all agree that practice is dispicable.

…evidence of kidnapped or missing children ending up abroad, fabricated names, babies switched with one another and parents told their newborns were gravely sick or dead, only to discover decades later they’d been sent to new parents overseas.

The irony is that Korea and China, two nations that went out of their way to slow their birth rate and export children, now have collapsing demographics due to low birth rates.

A lot of do-gooders from rich countries who think they’re adopting poor babies are unwitting kidnappers.