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Africa Expat Wives Club: African child welfare experts say the number of international adoptions of children from Africa has risen dramatically in recent years
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"African child welfare experts say the number of international adoptions of children from Africa has risen dramatically in recent years" BBC Africa. twitter.com/BBCAfrica/statuses/207407629058834432
Just heard this on the radio today.
I have to say, walking around either Yaya or Junction shopping centres in Nairobi for the past year or so has been an eye opener - you can actually see the reality of this adoption craze playing out in real time. (Do we credit Madonna for this?)
It's a phenomenon that is so noticeable that I (and my friends) can't help commenting on it regularly. I've actually seen bus loads of European couples arriving at these shopping centres, carrying African babies in papooses, eating in fast food restaurants, some arriving and leaving on foot, others just hanging about.
For every European couple dressed in comfortable sandals, pocket blazoned shorts in various hues of khaki, washed out t-shirts and dodgy caps (the sort of standard 'traveller' outfits that frankly look quite scruffy in what is a rather smart, professional and conservatively dressed Nairobi), sipping latte's or biting into burgers - there are invariably one or two babies in tow.
I am not sure whether there's a big children's home in the area, or perhaps Kilimani and Kileleshwa are just a good places to rent a short term apartment, because as I understand it, overseas couples who are adopting a baby from here, have to be resident in Kenya for six months before they are allowed to take the child out.
I'm not saying I'm pro or against Europeans or Americans adopting African babies - but I'm just saying - it's huge, it's happening.