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Your thoughts on Chinese adoptions
A Chinese baby looks out from the crib at an orphanage in Wuhu, eastern China's Anhui province.
Chinese toddlers rest in their cribs at an orphanage in Wuhu, eastern China's Anhui province.
Reporter Scott Tong spoke to several Americans who live in China and have adopted Chinese babies for his radio story. None were surprised about the story of a convicted baby trafficker who wanted to expose the widespread issue of Chinese baby trafficking. Here are some of their reactions excerpted from our interviews. All of these sources asked to remain anonymous.
WIDSPREAD ISSUE: Two people we interviewed noted that the corruption in illegal adoptions is part of a bigger corruption issue in China.
"I went into this [adoption] process with integrity. But corruption is just so rampant here. You feel anything is for sale. I'm not surprised by any of this."
"The world view for many is this was a one-off situation, that it happened one time. I think it's happened in more situations. And this was one case that was brought to light. I think mostly it's a bigger deal than perhaps most people want to admit to it. If you live here, OK, it makes a little more sense. If you have never lived outside the United States or not traveled much, it'd be hard to come to grips that any trafficking issues could happen. I think most people want to trust in the system -- unless something comes up to make you not want to."
RETHINKING ADOPTION: Several sources said they would rethink adopting a baby from China had they known that their child may have been a victim of baby trafficking.
"Knowing what I know about China, if I had to do it again I'd adopt from another country."
"Our reaction to this: Anger, fear as to our own daughter's origin, the sickening realization that in adopting we may have helped to fuel this incentive."
"I'd like to be able to provide our daughter with as much information about her personal history as we can, to fill that gap in her understanding about her own life. She is curious about her birth parents and origins, and I'd be glad to help her know as much as possible about that. At the same time, if she was abandoned simply because she was a girl, and was not wanted by her birth family, that's a hard and painful truth. I might prefer lack of knowledge to that knowledge. The danger in digging for information is that the information may be pretty painful or ugly. One doesn't know until one digs, and then it's too late to close Pandora's box. So I have mixed feelings about this. If the birth parents actually sold our daughter to traffickers with no regard for her welfare, I'd prefer not to know that, and again, one can't know until the box is opened. Of course our daughter can decide what level of investigation she might want to do as she grows older, and we would do what we could to help her."
"When we adopted, we took at face value the assurances we found in various places that China's was one of the most transparent and reliable international adoption processes. We tried to avoid adopting from a country where there was any question about corruption or trafficking. But by now we're not sure of the basis for these assessments, and we can't help but wonder how widespread such trafficking cases -- or simple embezzlement cases -- may be."
"We chose adoption of a Chinese girl because it apparently was so clean: 1. Perfectly healthy girls, in need of a home (because of the one-child policy), 2. A predictable -- though slow -- bureaucratic process, 3. No reasonable suspicion of trafficking, 4. No parents coming back, changing their minds, 5. No ambiguity about adopted/birth children (we're Caucasian). Somehow I think this is simpler. Knowing that there has been trafficking, knowing just how big the donation is really is in Chinese terms, I'd have concerns and might have chosen differently."
FEE QUESTIONS: Others reacted to the corrupt business practices behind selling babies and wondered where their adoption fees might be going.
"Of course we're happy to provide financial support to the children left behind, but $5,000 U.S. goes a tremendously long way in China -- particularly in rural China. It's hard to imagine where all those funds are used in orphanages that adopt out a lot of babies."
"I think this is a case-by-case situation. Some orphanage directors are honest, care very deeply for the children, and we hope are not profiting personally from adoption fees. I don't want to speak ill of China -- and we've certainly had our share of scandals and corruption in the U.S. -- but I also have seen how common and accepted corruption can be in Chinese society, and how low the regard can be for human life and welfare. I'm much less starry-eyed about the whole process than I was when we began our adoption journey."
NO EASY ANSWERS: Finally, others were resigned to the fact that baby trafficking is a widespread problem that won't be easy to solve.
"In the provinces, people are dirt poor. They really don't have many materialistic items. They live very simply. So it would be very easy to be tempted to do something that would not be so right to provide for their family."
"Was my daughter kidnapped to be sold? I don't seriously doubt my daughter was abandoned. Why? One: We visited the orphanage a few years after her adoption and saw many healthy infant girls. Two: There's a history in China of abandonment/infanticide of girls, especially in the South (my daughter is from Guangxi). Three: Back then I don't think people knew enough about it to hatch kidnapping schemes. That all said, I can't know for sure."
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It took 5 years from the beginning of the process of adopting to the day we brought our daughter home. During that entire time, I was reading anything and everything I could get my hands on about adopting from China. I can honestly say that I believed China's process to be clean. I know now that it absolutely is not, and I agonize over any little clue to that effect that I might have overlooked or worse yet, refused to acknowledge.
Since I have adopted my daughter, I have learned that virtually everything I was told about her is untrue. I know that trafficking is going on at the SWI that she came from because time and time again, the numbers and the facts don't add up. For example, I have learned that the girls from this SWI are not found at all, but "picked up" at the hospital or at the home of their birth parents. Not only does this mean that my daughter's birth parent(s) are not anonymous, but it means that the possibility that her birth parents were paid or coerced is very real.Evidently, the SWI has contracts with some of the local hospitals so that they are notified when a prospective infant girl is born.
The entire time we were waiting, we were told that we would be able to ask questions of the SWI workers, be able to visit the SWI, etc. When the time came, we were told that we couldn't visit and we were definitely discouraged from asking questions. The atmosphere and the social workers from our agency became very stern and foreboding. We weren't, however, discouraged from donating additional cash to the orphanage.
I feel sick to death over this, and I certainly don't cherish telling my daughter about it. I certainly wouldn't do it again, and would discourage anyone in the queue for adopting from China to think twice.
In response to gender bias in China...
Here are a few very understated facts that Western papers don't say (or may not know) enough:
(1) Women with hepatitis naturally give birth to more males than females. Much of Asia is infected with hepatitis, it is a major public health issue, and this needs to be acknowledged concerning gender ratio.
(2) It's true some males are valued in extremely poor, rural areas, because in traditional Confucian cultures, the male is expected to essentially be a living social security check for his parents. Husbands are also expected to hand over all their income over to their wives to control, this is considered very normal, and explains why most Asian commercials and entertainment are pink, cutesy, and effeminate. So, being an Asian male means more financial obligations/burdens than normal men.
(3) In terms of how gender ratio translates into Asian gender dynamics/roles in relationships though, is that the supply/demand dynamic is in favor for women. It is common to see males in major Chinese cities doing the bulk of the cooking, cleaning, child rearing, pretty much everything. The dating power is inverted from how it is in America, where males can pick and choose from willing partners for casual relationships.
(4) One other lesser-publicized fact is that China currently has 7 female billionaires, which make up half the world’s female billionaires, yet China’s economy is only 1/5 that of America’s.
We have been waiting in the China program since Nov of 2006, and fully planned to adopt an infant girl. I'm grateful that the wait grew long enough for us to do further research & decide that we were no longer comfortable feeding the demand for an infant girl! We are now happily in the process of adopting an 8 year old girl who truly does need a forever family.
I have adopted two children, both special needs, from China and may be even in the process adopting a 3rd.
I understand child trafficking is involved some of the times, but it isn't happening just in China. There is a risk no matter what country you adopt from, even here in the good ole USA.
It breaks my heart to think a few bad people ruin it for the rest who are doing it legally and wanting to help the children.
As far as needing crisp new $100 bills, it has nothing to do with possible corruption on the orphanages part. It has to do with China banks and the fact that China deals with cash and lots of it and new bills have less of a chance of being counterfeit.
I spent over four years working in a Chinese orphanage and I don't care what their government say, there are many children still languishing in institutes who could be living with loving adoptive families.
Kay Bratt
Author of Silent Tears; A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage
China has been an eye opening experience for my family. As a first generation Brazilian Chinese, for both personal and professional reasons, I embraced the opportunity to live in China and to sort out my own convoluted sense of personal identity.
What I found was a country with a hunger for change like an adolescent who is finally moving out on his own. China is sorting out the destruction of ancient traditions and recreating a culture now in the throes of a young political and economic system. With these changes new enticements have come.
In the area of adoption, our experience was mixed. There is no question in my mind that a lot of wheeling and dealing goes on. This starts at the not so subtle rivalry between American social workers to gain favor with the CCAA. Some claim that their candidates are processed faster because of their experience. In China, that is a euphemism for being well connected.
On to the actual arrival of your referral. We were told that we need to spend five days in the city to process our new daughter. After several phone calls and some ardent haggling by my assistant, the process was whittled down to four, and finally to two days. There was one caveat, we still needed to pay for four days of administrative help. Understood. I was happy to pay the extra just to expedite things.
When the date came, it took us all of twenty minutes to fill out the forms. When we arrived at the government adoption bureau, we had a mockery of an interview which took less than ten minutes. We were then ushered to take care of the many fees which included, by local standards, a sizable donation to the orphanage. That donation was the equivalent of roughly seven thousand dollars. Compare that to the average annual salary of a worker in China of approximately two thousand dollars a year.
The final leg in Guangzhou we did on our own. No chaperones, no fees. We were there for three days and everything in the US embassy went as was spelled out. It was an emotional day when we finally took the oath as parents of our lovely daughter.
Did the process leave a sour taste in our mouths? Absolutely. Would we do it again? Maybe. Maybe elsewhere. Going in with the idealism of parenting a needy child, we came out feeling a bit like we had gone into a real estate agency. Still, when we look at our daughter, hear the sound of her laughing in the bedroom with her siblings, all of the tarnished spots seem to evaporate. That there are skeletons in the closet, I have no doubt. But then again, which one among us doesn't?
During the process of adopting our daughter ten years ago, I did not totally blind myself to some of the questionable practices (new $100 bills, etc) but unsparing facts I also considered were:
- We wanted to adopt a child and felt we could provide a loving home to our child
- Due to China's one-child policy, a problem resulted with abandoned baby girls
- The Chinese adoption process was relatively one of the more reputable and efficient
- Human nature will dictate that in every process involving cash transactions (in the most civilized or advanced of societies) some will look to profit
Today, we have a caring, intelligent, lovely and most wonderful daughter who brings much joy to everyone. Would I have done anything different if my suspicions were confirmed back then - no.
My Chinese-born daughters are now 12 and 15, adopted in the '90s, before trafficking became a significant issue. I do, however, bear the burden of being part of the demand that may have led to trafficking becoming big business. I understand well the complexities of adoption, of international adoption and of parenting with the ghosts of unknown family always near, but until these news stories began to circulate in the last few years, I was woefully naive to the precedent we'd set.
I wouldn't trade my daughters or our situation for anything in the world - but if I could give them one gift, it would be the knowledge of their origins, and the peace they might find in that knowing. If that gift contained poison? I would spend the rest of my life helping them come to terms with their truths. Knowledge can be a double-edged sword, I realize.
The bottom line is that greed at the expense of children and families still exists in such volume in the world that we humans have to do all we can to stop the tide and avoid setting new stages upon which it can thrive.
Despite many people's attempts at denial or justification, the issue is really not complex. International trafficking in infants exists, and it is driven by demand and fueled by the money would-be adoptive parents pour into the system.
It's not about rescuing Chinese infants. It's not about whether they would have a "better" life in America with wealthier parents. It's about buying a child to fulfill the parents' needs, and choosing to ignore the source of that child.
If a stranger offered you a great deal on a Rolex watch or Coach handbag, would you question its provenance and ask for proof it wasn't stolen? It's amazing that Americans who refuse to buy blood diamonds from African slave mines can close their eyes when they adopt a child.
Until prospective adoptive parents accept the fact that they are the demand which human trafficking supplies, there will be profits to be made in kidnapping infants in Russia, Guatemala, Haiti, China and other parts of the world.
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