China will facilitate children adopted abroad search biological family
There will be easier access to their files prior to adoption and the organization of meetings with their former caregivers in orphanages, according to Ni Chunxia, ??deputy director of the Department of Social Affairs of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
China will facilitate children adopted abroad search biological family
New regulation issued by the Government of China came into effect this month and contemplates actions such as coverage of the expenses of the visits of the returnees. (Photo: EFE)
26.01.2019 / 04:02 am
Shanghai. The Chinese government said it will make "a greater effort" to help children born in China and adopted by foreign families to explore their roots and find their biological parents, the government newspaper China Daily reported today.
That includes easier access to their records prior to adoption and the organization of meetings with their former caregivers in orphanages, according to Ni Chunxia, ??deputy director of the Department of Social Affairs of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
"The local authorities should continue with the non-profit assistance and try to make it more humane, professional and adapted, with the aim of helping children to grow in a healthy way," he said.
This will be possible thanks to a new regulation issued by the Government in November that came into force this month and that includes actions such as coverage of the expenses of visits by returnees.
Precisely today the Ministry of Civil Affairs (ACM), announced that China registered a decrease in the annual number of adoptions registered in the last decade thanks to the "rapid and constant development of the economy and the improvement of welfare policies".
Thus, while the annual number of adoptions registered throughout the country in 2009 was 44,260, it plummeted by almost 66% to 15,143 in 2018, according to ministry figures.
As a consequence of the single-child policy implemented four decades ago by the Chinese Government and eliminated in 2016, many babies were abandoned due to the inability of their parents to face the heavy fines that involved having a second child.
Since a law was passed in 1992 to allow international adoption, adoptions abroad multiplied, many of them girls, who were mainly abandoned.
"As the economy develops and society stabilizes, fewer children have been abandoned," said MCA social affairs department director Wang Jinhua.