The number of adoptions here is at a 10-year low, having fallen by half in the last decade.
The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) processed 325 adoption applications last year, down from 556 in 2005 and 703 in 2001.
The sharp drop in the number of adoptions comes despite more than 91 per cent of the public viewing adoption as a perfectly viable way of starting a family, a study funded by the National University of Singapore (NUS) found last year.
Adoption agencies and voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) cite various reasons for the fall:
-- ST