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 | Beyond the China Adoption Rumor Mill
by Kim Phagan-Hansel |
Adoption Today investigates the current China adoption rumors to provide readers with clear, accurate information about the future of adoption.
Just log on to any China adoption Yahoo group and rumors will fill up your inbox on a daily basis. From rumors of what’s causing the current longer referral wait time to speculation about China adoptions closing forever, these rumors tend to cause stomach flip-flops for readers — many who are in the process of adopting from China. Are these rumors true, or is it something to get readers riled up?
After reading endless rumors and even receiving a few speculative phone calls, Adoption Today decided it was time to do a little detective work. Readers can rest easy tonight knowing that China is still a stable, reliable program from which to adopt.
“. . . China adoption is predictable, well-structured, and no hidden business,” said Melody Zhang, associate director of Children’s Hope International in St. Louis, Mo. “Parents are very happy with their adopted children.”
Currently living in China, Zhang has been working closely with the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs, or CCAA, in Beijing. And, despite the current extended wait times from the time the dossier is logged in by CCAA to referral of a child, everything is running well with the China adoption program.
“China adoption has been going on for over 10 years,” Zhang said. “It has helped many children who are adopted and those who remain in the orphanages. [The] Chinese government is supportive to international adoptions. China adoption will continue to improve in terms of quality of service, etc., in the near future.”
While all of this is positive, it does little to assuage families’ fears of longer wait times. Unlike during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, epidemic and other times, it looks as though the longer wait times are here to stay.
“I don’t consider this as backlog, it’s a longer waiting time for all families,” Zhang said. “I think as agencies we can prepare them (families) for the longer waiting and explain to them this is not a problem. There are many things worth waiting for and this is one of them.”
CCAA addressed the longer wait times in a Nov. 29, 2005 notice on their Web site at www.china-ccaa.org stating: “. . . the length of processing time after adoptive family apply for their application is correlated with the number of intercountry adopting families and the number with the adopting children waiting to be adopted. If the number of adoptive families is higher than the number of children to be adopted, the waiting period will be extended, on the other hand, if the number of children waiting for adoption out numbers the number of adoptive families, then the waiting period will be shortened . . .”
We can only assume this means CCAA has received a large number of dossiers and there are fewer children available for intercountry adoption. Zhang validates that idea, “There are not as many children waiting in the current adoption waiting list as the families. Every month there are many more families’ dossiers sent to CCAA, but there are less number of children’s paperwork sent here. There are many more orphans in China but it takes a lot to make them available for international adoption.”
This fact was also confirmed by Mary Moo, director of Asia programs at WACAP in Seattle, Wash. “Over the last year there was a real increase in applications,” Moo said. “Fewer kids are being relinquished or abandoned in general.”
This equates to an 18 to 24-month wait as opposed to the five to seven-month wait families were experiencing in early 2005. But on average, China adoptions have always had about a 12-month wait from the time a dossier is logged in at the Beijing office to referral of a child. At press time, CCAA had given referrals to families whose adoption application documents were registered by CCAA before June 28, 2005. Those families will travel to China four to six weeks from when they received their referral.
Besides adding to parents’ frustrations and anticipations about bringing a child into their homes, the extended wait times are beginning to cause other difficulties as well. Important documentation, including FBI fingerprints and clearance, as well as the I-171H, Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. Fingers prints expire at the 15-month mark and the I-171H at the 18-month mark. The documents, a required portion of the dossier to be submitted to China, leaves parents with documents expiring before the adoption is finalized in China.
“CCAA and the Chinese government have always been very supportive and thoughtful of the adoption process,” Moo said. “The Chinese government will do the best they can for the children they serve.”
Zhang echoes these thoughts that CCAA is doing its best on behalf of the children, including encouraging domestic adoptions and providing for special needs children through the Tomorrow Plan, a China program to provide orphans with needed operations and make some of them available for adoption.
“International adoptions provide families for children when they are unable to remain in their biological families or be adopted domestically. Once the first two options are more feasible, there will be less and less international adoption from China.”
For current updates, visit CCAA’s Web site at www.china-ccaa.org or call any China adoption agency. To contact Children’s Hope International, call (888) 899-2349 or visit www.childrenshopeint.org. To contact WACAP, call (800) 732-1887 or visit www.wacap.org.
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