Inter-country adoptions are causing a rise in the number of children in orphanages in EU countries, say psychologists at the University of Liverpool.

More adoptions are leading to higher numbers of children in institutions, says the study, because in EU countries such as France and Spain, people are choosing to adopt healthy, white children from abroad rather than children in their own country who are mainly from ethnic minorities.

Researchers found that EU countries with high proportions of international adoptions also had the highest rates of children living in institutions. High adoption did not reduce the number of children in institutional care but they say instead attributed to an increase.

The psychologists labelled this the ‘Madonna-effect’, after the singer’s high-profile adoption of a young boy from Zambia in 2006. Statistics show that the media attention surrounding this case contributed to an increase in the number of international adoptions, but at the expense of local orphans.

Except Madonna did not adopt a healthy white baby from abroad, she adopted a black orphan whose father could not care for him. Otherwise, the analogy holds up. Actually, they seem to be making the analogy solely a way to use Madonna comparisons for attention, much like they say people who adopt children from abroad are.

Child Psychologist, Professor Kevin Browne, said: “Some argue that international adoption is, in part, a solution to the large number of children in institutional care, but we have found the opposite is true. Closely linked to the Madonna-effect, we found that parents in poor countries are now giving up their children in the belief that they will have a ‘better life in the west’ with a more wealthy family.

“Some celebrities have unwittingly encouraged international adoption, yet it has been shown that 96 per cent of children in ‘orphanages’ across Europe and probably across the globe are not true orphans and have at least one parent often known to the local authorities. The fact that these rules and regulations can be broken makes international adoption an ‘easier’ process than it has ever been before.

Professor Browne added: “Governments and orphanages can reap substantial financial gains from international adoption and this appears to be fuelling its growth but many are breaking the UN Convention of Rights of the Child which states that international adoption should only be used as a last resort in situations where all other means of fostering, adoption and care within the child’s country of origin, are exhausted.”

The Liverpool researchers are recommending that more stringent guidelines for monitoring policy and practice are implemented to ensure that international adoption is used as a last resort.

The study was published by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering last week.