Changes to the Korea program are coming up

I just heard from my agency that Korea is changing their adoption policies.. they are requiring a 6-month wait list in-country to encourage inter-country adoptions. All adoptions after December 31st, 06 will have these new policies in place.

Re: Changes to the Korea program are coming up

Yes, this is true. There is legislation that is going into effect in 2007 that will require babies to stay in Korea for the first six months of their life. This is to increase the chances of the child being adopted domestically. Korea has already put many incentives into effect to increase domestic adoptions which are already massively effective. For example, they now allow single mothers in Korea to adopt, they are offering 10,000 won to couples that adopt, and really pushing to change perspectives of Koreans on adoption overall. SWS in Korea (the agency we chose due to their fast referral times) actually already put things into effect in 2006 which is why I'm still waiting for John to come home. They stopped accepting new homestudies from when the news of this legislation broke until this month in order to allow time for the babies to "age out." They are anticipating a much longer wait for Korean adoptions in the future. I think their ideal is to phase international adoption out completely. Because of this, DH & I have already started discussing beginning the process for #2.