Fewer South African children are being adopted by foreigners, with the number dropping almost 60% since 2006, when 256 children found new families.
Only 108 inter-country adoptions were recorded in 2022, according to Statistics South Africa’s latest Migration Profile Report.
The government’s promotion of reunification over adoption is part of the reason for the decrease, says Robyn Wolfson Vorster, a child protection activist and the founder of For the Voiceless.
She says the government is resistant to adoption between people of different races as well as to inter-country adoptions, which it believes promotes child trafficking. The adoption process by foreigners carries a particularly heavy administrative burden.
Just over 12% of children in South Africa have lost either one or both of their parents, with the highest number of orphans in the Free State (16%), according to the 2022 General Household Survey.