Exploring variations and influencing factors of illegal adoption: A comparison between child trafficking and informal adoption

Abstract

Background

Illegal adoption, which mainly includes child trafficking and informal adoption, has long been a prevalent social issue in China. However, the processes and patterns of illegal adoption are not well understood due to the scarcity of data.

Objective

The findings are expected to provide insightful clues for the government and the public to better understand the two categories of illegal adoption.

Participants and setting

This study included 4296 trafficking cases and 4499 informal adoption cases between 1949 and 2018. The data came from the ‘Baby Coming Back Home’ (https://www.baobeihuijia.com) website, which is the most comprehensive commonweal forum established by nongovernmental volunteers for finding missing persons in China.

Methods

Mathematical statistics and hot spot analysis were used to visualize the spatiotemporal pattern of illegal adoption.

Results

Child trafficking and informal adoption show opposite gender preferences and different age gradients. The numbers of both cases peaked in the early 1990s and then dropped. More than 50 % of all trafficked children were male, whereas approximately 83 % cases of informal adoption were female between 1980 and 2000. Hot spots of illegal adoption have shifted from the cities of the Huai River Basin to the southeastern coastal cities over time, 39.40 % of trafficking cases occurred in rural residential areas, and 52.45 % of informal adoption cases were observed in hospitals.

Conclusions

Child trafficking and informal adoption are two different ways of adopting children in China. The combination of the one-child policy and the traditional culture of son preference shaped the different characteristics of the illegal adoption of children during a critical period.

Introduction

Illegal adoption of children is usually considered a way to preserve important resources and resolve an issue of childlessness in Chinese history. Illegal adoption has mainly included child trafficking and informal adoption, which are two different ways of adopting children in China. Child trafficking, which is often associated with human trafficking, is perceived as a serious crime and has been a topic of heated academic discussion for decades. According to Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol, child trafficking refers the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of any person under 18 years of age for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (United Nations, 2000). According to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, trafficking refers the kidnapping, abducting, purchasing, trading, facilitating and transferring of a child under the age of 14 for the purpose of selling him or her. According to this definition, the main purpose of domestic child trafficking is illegal adoption, whereas forced labor or sexual exploitation are only considered aggravating factors within the overall trafficking process (Shen, 2016). Informal adoption is a conventional activity also known as private adoption that is rooted in unique legal regulations and traditional culture. Instances in which the birth family does not give up an unregistered child to earn a profit (Johansson & Nygren, 1991) and the adopting family does not follow legal procedures to privately adopt the child are regarded as informal adoption (Wang, 2014b). These practices were once an acknowledged social phenomenon but were not officially recognized prior to the implementation of the 1992 Adoption Law (Shang & Fisher, 2019). For example, parents who are ‘unable to rear their children due to exceptional difficulties’ place their children up for adoption without receiving appropriate compensation (Xiong, 2021). Such practices were not regarded as crimes if they were not for profit (Wang, 2014a).

Illegal adoption is relatively common in Chinese society, a unique context where children are often regarded as ‘fertile property’ by their biological parents to be sold or transferred to secure the family's survival (Wang, 2014a). In China, child trafficking can be divided into two broad categories. In the first category, traffickers take children away from their parents or guardians through abduction, coercion, deception, or other means of violence (Yang et al., 2021).In this mode, children and their parents are victims of trafficking, and traffickers can be strangers, acquaintances or relatives of the victims. In the second category, biological parents or guardians take the initiative to sell children for illegal profits (Xing, 2017). In this case, the parents do not act as the guardians of their children but rather as the perpetrators. These two forms of child trafficking are different in terms of the selling motivation, trafficking process, and the rescue result, trafficked children are generally males aged 1–6 years, who suffer more harm from traffickers than biological parents (Li et al., 2020). Informal adoption is culturally embedded such that it was previously viewed simply as a ‘tradition’. Informal adoption includes two categories. In the first category, the children are given directly to the adoptive family by their guardians (parents or other relatives) to improve the children's quality of life, and the adoptive families privately adopt the children without completing an official registration at the time of the adoption (Yang, 2004). In the second category, the children are given by their guardians to a middleman, who may either give the children to adoptive families or sell them (Yang, 2004). These middlemen can be traffickers, medical staff, relatives or friends of the family. In the case of informal adoption, children are usually female newborns under the age of 1, who suffer less harm than trafficked children (Li et al., 2020).

Section snippets

Literature review

The illegal adoption of children in China has a long history, and the issue must be understood in the unique local historical, cultural, political and socioeconomic context. Previous studies have noted that Chinese child trafficking is driven by the demand for illegal adoption, which is a result of China's one-child policy, the traditional culture of son preference, and barriers to legal adoption (Shen et al., 2013). Specifically, with the implementation of the one-child policy in 1979, most

Study area

East China, which ranges from north to south, includes Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and Taiwan Provinces (Shanghai and Taiwan are not considered in our study (Fig. 1). Historically, these provinces have been deeply influenced by a strong clan culture, including male preference and female tradition; these characteristics made the illegal adoption of children run rampant in this area for a period of time, which led to widespread public concern. It has been

Sociodemographic characteristics

The two types of illegal adoption cases—child trafficking and informal adoption—differ observably in their gender and age composition (Fig. 2). The age-gender of trafficked children presented an hourglass-shaped trend, and males accounted for 57.50 % of the total cases. While informally adopted children showed an inverse T-shaped trend, females accounted for the largest share of informally adopted cases (75.06 %). In terms of age, the majority of trafficked children were under 4 years,

Conclusion and discussion

Based on a dataset from a large-scale Chinese public welfare website covering the period of 1949–2018, this study provided an opportunity to examine in more detail than has previously been possible the gender-age preferences and spatiotemporal differences between child trafficking and informal adoption in six provinces in East China. Through comparative analysis, we found that significant sex differences exist in the illegal adoption market. Child trafficking shows a clear preference for males,

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42271239, 41871144), Humanities and Social Science Projects of Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No. 16YJAZH028).