Times are Changing

I just read a great post about the current orphanage status in China right now.  Read the full post here , I have copied some of the post below:

The BEST adult session at the Chinese Heritage Camp was the talk by Amy Eldridge of Love Without Boundaries. She spoke about the changing face of Chinese adoption and about the current challenges of orphan care in China. It was emotional, informative, and fascinating. I'll try to report it all, but I hope others who were there will add anything I missed. Amy spoke for almost 2 hours, so I don't think I could possibly remember it all!


Amy first talked about the immense changes in China adoption in the past 10 years. The landscape has changed considerably from the days when Chinese orphanages were filled with healthy infant girls who had been abandoned because of the government's one child policy and the social preference for boys. Now, the orphanages are filled with special needs kids, many critically ill. She reported that 98% of newly abandoned children in China have serious medical needs, which explains why 60% of adoptions in 2010 were special needs adoption.

Why the significant change? First, she said, there has been a growth in more modern attitudes about girls. It is really only in the rural areas that the social preference for boys remains. Ten years ago, 85% of the Chinese population lived in rural areas. Now, only 50% are rural, 50% urban. With that urbanization has come more education, the internet, and the like, which has led to more modern attitudes. Second, there has been growth in the availability of ultrasound technology. Now, anyone who is pregnant can know the child's sex. Anyone who carries a girl to term does so knowingly and with every intention of parenting her. Those who want a boy instead will have an abortion. Third, domestic adoption in China is growing rapidly. That's caused in part by the public interest in adoption after all the news reporting about the orphans of the Sichuan earthquake. And another factor is the increased rate of infertility in China. One government agency estimates that as many as 40 million couples in China are infertile. Infertility is skyrocketing because of increased premarital sex without much sex education, causing increased rates of STDs and frequent abortions that might be less than sterile and because of environmental toxins and pollution. Domestic adoption is preferred by orphanage directors, because domestic adopters pay higher fees than international adopters. In Guangzhou, domestic adopters pay fees of $15,000 to the orphanage; in Hefei, the fee is $7,000 for domestic adopters. Most adoptions are handled on the county or provincial level, even though the CCAA now has a national office of domestic adoption. Orphanages just don't send the files of healthy infants for international adoption when they can place the child domestically.

So, for these three reasons, there are fewer and fewer healthy infant girls available for international adoption. And there has been skyrocketing abandonment of special needs children...
 
You can finish the article here., and read Amy's actual comments about the post in the comments section at the bottom of the post. Very informative!