After issuing warnings earlier this year, the U.S. government has announced a suspension of processing for new adoption cases from Nepal involving children claimed to have been found abandoned, because “a review of recently processed cases established a disturbing pattern indicating that available documentation cannot be relied upon,” and circumstances of alleged abandonment cannot be verified.  Further information is available from the State Department’s adoption information web page for Nepal and from a US Citizenship and Immigration Services press release.  International organizations and NGOs have been attempting to work with Nepal on these problems for some time, including UNICEF and the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference, which issued a report on the situation in November 2009.