Fewer children being adopted in Belgium: official figures

Belgium recorded a 16 percent decline in adoptions last year, with Ethiopian and Chinese children remaining the top nationalities for foreign adoptions in Belgium, official figures reveal.

Data from Belgium's justice ministry, published on Sept. 1, show that in total, 686 adoptions were registered in 2014, 323 girls and 363 boys, down from 819 in the previous year.

Adoptions from foreign countries accounted for 29 percent of the total in 2014, down from 44 percent in 2011.

Chinese children are the second most common foreign nationality, representing 646 of the 3,616 overseas adoptions registered in Belgium between September 2005, when current records began, and November 2014.

The most common foreign nationality was Ethiopian children, who make up 28 percent of foreign adoptions by Belgian residents over the same period, a total of 1,014.

The justice ministry figures show 77 percent of children adopted in Belgium are under the age of four at the time.

The number of adoptions by same-sex couples, which have been allowed since 2006, remains relatively low, with 13 male couples and four female couples becoming adoptive parents in 2014. Enditem