Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: In this series, CNN investigates international adoption, hearing from families, children and key experts on its decline, and whether the trend could – or should – be reversed.
CNN
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International adoptions steadily rose since the 1950s before exploding in the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and the opening of China and Russia. After peaking in 2004 with more than 45,000 overseas adoptions, the numbers globally have fallen by half in less than a decade.