November 2, 2006. Incremental Adoption Costs under the Hague – Are They Really Too High?
The Wall Street Journal article of November 2 entitled “Rules are Set to Change on Intercountry Adoptions”, raises the possibility that U.S. ratification of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption will increase the cost of ICA for American families. Using the quoted American ICA statistics for 2005, and estimating the number of adoption providers at 400, implies an average placement of 57 children per provider. If each of those providers passed on their Hague accreditation costs ($7-13,000) every four years, the additional Hague-related expenses would amount to less than $60 per child in incremental costs-a very small number in comparison to the benefits of transparency and monitoring. In actuality, placement is more skewed; large agencies place several hundred children per year, and small agencies correspondingly fewer. Smaller agencies may cooperate with larger ones in a supervised provider relationship, sharing the burden of working one on one with families, while ensuring HCI
