China Currently Working to Broaden Category of Children Who Can Be Adopted

Foreign families may be able to adopt orphans or abandoned children who are not under State care, a senior Chinese adoption official recently revealed. Regulations are being drafted to broaden the category for those eligible for adoption to include "children inplight".  More here.

Adoption Agency Gets #1 Ranking by China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption

Chinese Children Adoption International has been ranked the #1 Adoption Agency by the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA, formerly CCAA) for overall assessment among the 178 international adoption agencies or countries around the world placing children from China!!


This ranking (released on March 28, 2011) is the first ever by the Chinese government.

Chinese Infant Adoptees Form Attachments Quickly

As reported by Adoption Institute -
RESEARCH SHOWS CHINESE INFANT ADOPTEES FORM ATTACHMENTS RAPIDLY


A Canadian study of attachment development among 32 adopted Chinese girls (mean age at adoption = 13 months) found that although adoptive mothers reported more inhibited behaviors initially in their infants, after six months, the reported rate was about the same as for mothers in a comparison group of non-adopted infants. "The Emerging Attachment Relationship between Adopted Chinese Infants and their Mothers," by Mirella Pugliese, Nancy Cohen, Fataneh Farnia and Mirek Lojkasek, is in the December issue of Children and Youth Services Review (Volume 32, Issue 12). The study also reported no variability in adopted and non-adopted children's avoidant or resistant behaviors or in maternal nurturing or rejecting behaviors, concluding that the moderate deprivation these infants experienced before adoption did not interfere with their forming new attachments. To access an abstract, go to: http://bit.ly/h3JGkN.

Record Low in International Adoptions

Adoptive Families Magazine reports that 2010 was a year of record low international adoptions.

The number of intercountry adoptions by Americans fell 13 percent in the past year—from 12,753 to 11,059—to reach a 15-year low, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. Adoptions from China continued to head the list, with 3,401 adoptions to the U.S. in 2010. Rounding out the top five sending countries are Ethiopia (2,513), Russia (1,082), South Korea (863), and Ukraine (445).

China Opens Adoption to Single Women

China has changed it's policy regarding international adoption by single women!  Joint Council on International Children's Services has a full report on their blog, along with the full text of the CCAA announcement. 

News from A Mother's Love

 The latest newsletter from A Mother's Love, a ministry that supports orphaned children in China.

New Book on Adoption from NPR Radio Host

Scott Simon, the host of Weekend Edition on NPR, writes about his journey in adopting two baby girls from China in his new book, Baby We Were Meant For Each Other.
Amazon describes the book as,
a love story that doesn’t gloss over the rough spots. There are anxieties and tears along with hugs and smiles and the unparalleled joy of this blessed and special way of making a family. Here is a book that families who have adopted—or are considering adoption—will want to read for inspiration. But everyone can enjoy this story because, as Scott Simon writes, adoption can also help us understand what really makes families, and how and why we fall in love.


Here, Simon discusses his book on a segment of NPR's Fresh Air.  He also discusses his international adoption story on a segment of NPR's Morning Edition here.

A History of International Adoption and Adopting from Haiti

In The New Yorker John Seabrook writes an account of his Haitian adoption experience during the earthquake.  His article also provides a good history of international adoption and how Americans' attitudes about it have evolved. 
The Last Babylift
Adopting a child in Haiti.

A Mother's Love Fundraiser

A Mother's Love, a ministry dedicated to helping China's orphans, is holding their annual fundraiser on May 14 in Winter Springs, FL.  Some of A Mother's Love projects include building playgrounds for orphanages, funding surgeries, and providing scholarships in order that orphaned children may attend school.   

If you would like to attend the fundraiser please RSVP beforehand.  If you would like more information about A Mother's Love, China's orphans, or if you cannot attend the fundraiser and would like to make a donation, please contact Jeff or Debbie Knipe at jdknipe@aol.com. 

40 percent decline in overseas adoptions by Americans since 2004

Idaho's Impact
Haiti scandal overshadows bigger threat to evangelical adoption efforts.
from Christianity Today

The high-profile legal saga of the 10 Idaho-based Baptists arrested in January for attempting to smuggle 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic is winding down. But evangelical adoption advocates wonder what the long-term impact will be.

Leading orphan care advocate Russell Moore suggested in the days following the arrests that the scandal might be a black eye to evangelicals' adoption efforts worldwide. But two months later, Moore said he is no longer worried about a fallout.

"In many ways, the controversy served as an opportunity to clarify what we mean and what we do not mean," said Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "No one in the Christian orphan care community is calling for children to be adopted who are not in fact orphans. And no one is calling for children to be adopted apart from the legitimate processes."

A larger hurdle for international adoptions by evangelicals may be new restrictions on adoptions in countries where they have been most prevalent, including China, Guatemala, Russia, Vietnam, and Liberia.

China, which has traditionally accounted for the majority of adoptions to the U.S., rewrote its qualifications for adoptive parents in 2007. Guatemala, the second-largest source of American adoptions, completely shut down its program in 2008 due to widespread corruption, though it will launch a new adoption system this June. Since 2004, these and other restrictions have resulted in a 40 percent decline in overseas adoptions by Americans—from an all-time high of almost 23,000 in 2004 to fewer than 12,800 in 2009, according to the U.S. State Department.

Read the complete article here:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/may/2.14.html?start=1

China's Population Controls leads to Stolen Children

Two stories from the Los Angels Times about stolen children:
1.  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-adopt20-2009sep20,0,491086.story

2.  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-twins20-2009sep20,0,996999.story

International Adoptions to Canada Increase

 According to statistics released by Citizenship and Immigration Canada in October, international adoptions to Canada increased by 11 percent, from 1,713 in 2007 to 1,909 in 2008. Adoptions from the U.S. to Canada doubled from 94 to 189 during this period, making the U.S. the second-largest source of international adoptions to Canada (the highest is China, sending 429 children in 2008).
(From Adoptive Families magazine.)

Another Drop in International Adoptions

Adoptive Families magazine reports that the number of intercountry adoptions fell again last year—from 17,438 in fiscal year 2008 to 12,700 in fiscal year 2009, a decrease of 27 percent—according to early data from the U.S. Department of State on IR3 and IR4 visas issued.
The decline likely reflects several trends in intercountry adoption: Adoption from China continues to slow; and Vietnam and Guatemala processed only grandfathered international adoption cases during 2009.
Some countries saw an increase in intercountry adoptions last year. Adoptions from Ethiopia continue to rise, and adoptions from Haiti, the Philippines, and Ukraine have all increased.

New Book for Those Who Have or Are Adopting from China

Description from the author:
The Dragon Sisterhood is an education workbook for Chinese adoptive families. It covers the adoptive family wellness topics of historical origin, racial identity, attachment, adoption history, life books, educational scholarships for Asians, books, and documentary film resourcing. Each chapter includes a workbook page for adoptive parents in preparation for their child's adoptive life book.

100% of the sale of this book go towards the non-profit 503(c)(3) The Dragon Sisterhood, dedicated to educational opportunity scholarships for Chinese American adoptees.


Here is a link to The Dragon Sisterhood blog - http://www.dragonsisterhood.blogspot.com/

International Adoption News: China, Guatemala, Liberia

CHINA   The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) announced on September 15 that, beginning December 1, all adoptive families must be registered with a Hague-accredited adoption service provider (ASP). If an adoptive family is currently registered with a non-accredited ASP, they are required to transfer their adoption to a Hague-accredited ASP no later than December 1. Families currently using the I-600A and I-600 process (non-Hague) may continue with this process.

GUATEMALA   In an effort to improve communication with families who have pending adoption cases in Guatemala, the Department of State will be creating a listserv. If you have a pending Guatemala adoption case and would like to be included, e-mail AskCI@state.gov , and provide the information listed at adoption.state.gov/guatemala.html

LIBERIA   The Government of Liberia informed the U.S. Embassy in September that it will not process any adoption cases during its suspension of intercountry adoptions, including those that were in progress before the suspension was announced, on January 26, 2009, and that it will not permit adopted children to depart Liberia. The Liberian government has made no provisions to grandfather cases under the existing laws. Therefore, any case in which a full and final adoption was not completed prior to January 26 is on hold. The Liberian government is willing to consider exceptions for certain special needs children. There is no indication when the moratorium might be lifted, and prospective parents should not apply to adopt there at this time.

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/news.php

China Re-thinking One-Child Policy as the Population Ages

A story from The TimesOnline - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6841430.ece

Call for more babies as China turns to grey
Michael Sheridan in Shanghai

WHEN the head of family planning in Shanghai said young couples should have more babies because the city was growing old, it sounded like a statement of the obvious.
Yet within days there was a storm of comment on the internet and in state media as people asked whether this meant the government was preparing to relax its one-child policy.
There are signs officials are rethinking the ban, which has prevented 400m births since 1979, because on present trends China’s population will begin to decline by the middle of the century. By then, India will have overtaken it as the most populous nation.
Xie Lingli, the Shanghai family planning official, was forced to explain publicly that he had not deviated from the party line, which restricts most couples in Chinese cities to one child.
The rules allow couples who are both only-children to have two babies. Shanghai has introduced other exceptions, including more leeway for fishermen and farmers. It has also abolished a rule that couples who are allowed more than one child must wait four years between births.
“There’s a huge social demand for second children,” said Yang Henmin, an engineer in Shanghai. “In the end the government cannot control it any more than it can grasp the wind.”
The city’s family planners talk of “encouraging” more births in a change of tone that sounds distinctly like liberalisation by stealth.
“In the past we stressed birth control, not the chance to have a second child. Not many people know these exceptions to the regulations so we were just reminding them,” said Xie.
There are few babies to be seen on the streets of China’s commercial capital. The city is ageing so quickly that by 2020 more than a third of its 19m people will be 60 or over. The city’s pension fund faces bankruptcy.
It is a harbinger of change that will come as a shock to some commentators who portray China as a youthful country that is destined to rule the world. In fact, the one-child policy means China is “greying” fast. On present trends it will grow old before it has a chance to get rich.
Although China’s population has passed 1.3 billion and is still growing, it is expected to peak within three decades. By 2040, India will have 1.5 billion people versus 1.42 billion Chinese, according to Barbara Pillsbury, an expert on population control.
The Chinese media reported her forecast and the Shanghai debate shows that officials have begun to grasp the consequences of the policy.
By the middle of the century China will have more than 330m people over 60, of whom 100m will be over 80. In contrast, the US is predicted to have a younger population because of immigration and higher birth rates.
“We say that four, two, one — that’s four grandparents, two parents and one child — is the usual family structure in Shanghai,” said Tan Jie, a businessman, “so the burden of care is a heavy one.”
Then there is the gender imbalance. Pillsbury said that while the average live birth ratio is 105 boys to 100 girls, in China it is 119 to 100 — the result of abortions by couples desperate for a son.
In Mao Tse-tung’s time, the average Chinese woman had six children. Today she has 1.8. In the past, there were six younger people working to support each old person. In the one-child generation, said Pillsbury, there would be one couple to support each one.
“The figures are getting close to those in Japan and Sweden,” wrote the China Youth Daily, “so Shanghai’s intentions should be praised, but its methods are wrong.”
The newspaper warned that if other provinces did the same, the “strain on society” would be immense. “The government should not ask or encourage people to have another child; families should make the decision,” it said.
Its line seemed to suggest that a cautious debate about relaxing the policy has reached the upper echelons of the Communist party.
“China accounted for 40% of the world’s population in the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty, but today it accounts for 20%,” said Wang Xinhai, a social scientist. “So China should encourage people to have even three children,” he said.
Chinese officials are defensive about a widespread misconception that the one-child limit is imposed on every couple. In the countryside, people may have a second child if their first is a girl, or disabled. No restrictions apply to China’s minorities, including Tibetans and Uighur Muslims.
But Shanghai, which was the first modern city in China, is keeping up its pioneering role. Five other provinces have followed its lead by relaxing the rule requiring four years between births. A historic change of policy may be in the early stages of gestation.

News from China Center of Adoption Affairs

Issued by the Joint Council on International Children's Services:

"During a meeting with the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) on Tuesday, September 15, 2009, Director General Lu announced that beginning December 1, 2009, all adoptive families must be registered with a Hague Accredited Adoption Service Provider (ASP). If an adoptive family is currently registered with a non-Accredited ASP, they are required to transfer their adoption to a Hague Accredited ASP no later than December 1, 2009. Director General Lu also clarified: families currently using the I-600A and I-600 process (non-Hague) may continue with this process. Families are not required to transfer to the I-800A and I-800 process, unless deemed necessary by the United State Government."

Overseas adoptions disrupted by new TB policy

From MSNBC
New mandate may delay plans for those adopting kids from China, Ethiopia
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Advocates of international adoption are furious over a new federal policy related to tuberculosis testing that could disrupt plans for families adopting children from China and Ethiopia.

The policy already has forced one distraught couple from Virginia, Jay Scruggs and Candace Litchford, to leave China without the daughter they had spent two weeks bonding with.
“That was a cruel thing to put a 4-year-old child through,” Litchford said in a telephone interview Monday. “How is she supposed to trust us now?”

The anger stems from a directive issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007 intended to minimize the number of immigrants entering the U.S. with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Earlier this year, the CDC announced that immigrants over the age of 2 from Ethiopia and China — a country that for the past decade has been the leading source of foreign adoptions for American parents — would be subject to the new protocols. The policy applies to all immigrants, including children adopted abroad by U.S. citizens.

Adoption advocates say the required testing procedures — and treatment in the case of positive tests — could cause delays ranging from several weeks to 12 months for obtaining a visa to bring adopted children back to the U.S.

Several major adoption organizations are circulating a petition asking the CDC to exempt adopted children from the requirements. The groups contend that the risk of TB transmission is minimal for infected children under 12 and contend that adopted children, unlike some adult immigrants, are virtually assured of obtaining top-level health care as soon as they reach the U.S.

Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer of the National Council for Adoption, expressed fear that some children adopted by Americans would, because of the new delays, die in their homelands for lack of state-of-the-art medical care they might have received in the U.S.
“Some of these bureaucrats are going to have to answer for that,” Johnson said.
Johnson and his allies are trying to mobilize congressional support for exempting adopted children from the policy. They are gathering testimonials from medical experts to back the contention that children, in contrast to adults, are extremely unlikely to transmit TB.

The CDC defends the policy as medically necessary.
“We agree it’s a rare circumstance that children can transmit TB, but the reality is it can happen,” said CDC spokesman Glen Nowak.
He also said the CDC did not have the legal authority to exempt children being adopted by U.S. families from rules applying to other immigrants.
As for Scruggs and Litchford, Nowak said, “We appreciate that this is frustrating. ... We are doing what we can to make this go as fast as possible.”

The policy does not apply to children under 2. However, Thomas DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, noted that China was emphasizing special needs adoptions for older children, so that many hundreds of families could be affected by the rules.
Bringing Harper homeAny policy change will come too late for Scruggs and Litchford, both architects from Alexandria, Va.
They traveled to China last month and met their adopted daughter, Harper, on July 27, but had to return home without her last week after a wrenching farewell that they captured on a video posted on their blog.
Litchford said she and her husband were aware of the new regulations and also knew that Harper — being adopted under the “special needs” program — had asthma-like health problems.
However, Litchford said they were told Harper tested negative for TB, so they went ahead with their trip, hoping to bring her home. After arriving in China, they were told that Harper actually had tested positive for TB and that, under the new CDC regulations, she would have to undergo a series of tests to ensure she was TB-free, with results not expected for at least six weeks.
The couple sought a waiver so they could leave with Harper in tow, but were unsuccessful and returned to the U.S. without her, in part for financial reasons and also because they had left their 6-year-old adopted son, Ivan, back in the U.S.
Litchford said Harper already had spent time in two hospitals and with a Chinese foster family that eventually decided it didn’t want her.
“She’s scared to death,” Litchford said. “Every time she walks into a new situation, she thinks she’s being left again. And then we had to leave her, the worst thing that could happen has happened.”

In the video, Scruggs tries to assure Harper that he and Litchford will return to take her home. But the girl nonetheless bursts into sobs and clings to her father as he tries to leave.
Harper will stay over the next several weeks with a family near Guangzhou, and her parents hope she will be cleared for travel to the U.S. at some point in September.
“This is not an immigrant — it’s not someone who has no address in the U.S. and no support network,” Litchford said. “It’s a child with a family who’s going to care for her. But now we can’t. We can’t take care of our daughter.”

Long term, the problems faced by Scruggs and Litchford may be alleviated by a bill recently introduced in Congress. It would extend U.S. citizenship immediately to children adopted abroad by American parents, replacing the current policy in which citizenship is extended only after the child reaches the U.S.

Had the bill been in effect this summer, Harper would not have been treated as an immigrant and would have been allowed to travel to Virginia with her parents.
Adoption advocates say the bill is unlikely to win approval this year, so they are hoping the CDC might ease the procedures for adopted children in the interim.
“I don’t believe the CDC intentionally put this policy into place to harm adopted children — I just don’t think they were considered in the mix,” said McLane Layton, founder of Equality for Adopted Children. “The policy needs to be re-evaluated in this regard, the sooner the better.”
Layton, one of most vocal critics of the CDC policy, has been following the difficulties of Scruggs and Litchford as they sought to bring home Harper.
“You wonder about the psychological and emotional impact it will have,” Layton said. “When her parents come back, how much will it take for her to believe they’re not going to leave her again?”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32363931/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/from/ET

Henan Orphan Care Sponsors Needed

Ninety-three children in Henan orphanages are waiting right now for sponsors in order to live with a trained foster family or be cared for at one of the three Lily Orphan Care Centers.

Would you consider sponsoring one of these waiting children for $40 a month?

As a sponsor, you will receive quarterly reports and pictures for the child you sponsor. More importantly, you will enable an abandoned child to escape an institutional environment and receive one-on-one care that will permanently and positively impact his or her life.

For $1.30 a day, you can make an immeasurable difference!

One person or family can sponsor a child, or several families, a group of co-workers, a church group, or a group of classmates can also pitch in and sponsor a child as a group.

PLEASE reach out to a child by becoming a sponsor today! For detailed information, please contact Xia at charity@chinesechildren.org or 303-850-9998 ext 17. Thanks!!!

http://www.henankids.org/

http://www.chinesechildren.org/

China Eases One-Child Policy in Shanghai

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2009/07/china_eases_onechild_policy_in.html

Seeking to offset Shanghai's aging population, government officials are encouraging couples to have two children
by Elissa Cooper


Reports began emerging late last week that while China is not lifting its one-child policy — heavily criticized for leading to forced abortions — it is considering amending it based on the needs of Shanghai, the nation’s capital, which hosts a rapidly aging population and weakening workforce.

Shanghai’s Population and Family Planning Commission has begun sending out officials and volunteers to pass out leaflets and offer emotional and financial counseling to families who might be willing to have a second child. More births would help even out the age proportion and bolster the city’s economy. And younger people will be needed: Shanghai is home to more than 3 million people over 60, about one-fifth of its population. In 2020, those over 60 are predicted to make up one-third.

At the start of Communist rule in 1949, China’s government encouraged population growth and even banned birth control. But the population outgrew the food supply, causing over 30 million deaths from starvation by 1962. The government instated the one-child policy in 1979, and for 30 years has kept a tight rein on the country’s population (the world’s largest) of 1.3 billion people by monitoring pregnancies, sometimes forcing parents to terminate them.
The one-child policy makes limited exceptions based on location, ethnicity, and education, and so on. In urban areas like Shanghai, couples without siblings are permitted to have two children. Rural families (about 53 percent of China’s population) are allowed a second child if the first is a girl. Couples who willingly have only one child get honors and benefits, while those who break the rules are punished with fines and property damages.

And everyone is well aware that boys are preferred to girls. With accessibility to ultrasounds in the 1980s, the number of aborted females skyrocketed. Prenatal gender screening was banned in 1994, but the damage was done: This April, a British Medical Journal study found there are 32 million more Chinese boys than girls under age 20.

Although China’s policy shift seems rooted more in economic security than in ethical concerns over forced abortions and gender selection, the shift is nonetheless welcome. Many have waited a long time for the one-child policy to change.