Feeling at home abroad

Lara Peterson, president of Families with Children from China, northwest chapter, and her three daughters (from left, Ella, Lucy, and Gwenn) who are adopted from China. Chang Jun / China Daily

Chinese children remain the top choice of adoptive families in the United States. Tan Yingzi reports from Seattle, the United States.

The latest annual inter-country adoption report shows that China is still the most popular country for United States couples adopting children from other countries.

A total of 3,401 children were adopted from China in 2010, followed by 2,513 from Ethiopia and 1,082 from Russia, according to the 2010 Annual Report on Inter-country Adoptions released by the US Department of State earlier in February.

The report also shows that American couples usually pay an average of $16,803 in fees to adopt a child from China and it takes an average of 177 days.

Though China remains the most popular country for adoptions, the figure is down dramatically from the nearly 8,000 in 2005.

This is because more Chinese couples have begun to adopt children, fewer unwanted children have been born and the Chinese government has tightened adoption regulations to better protect the rights and interests of adopted children.

To date, about 60,000 Chinese children have been adopted by American families, according to the Chinese embassy.

Other statistics show that nearly 90 percent of the adopted Chinese children are female, 44 percent under the age of 1 and 52 percent between 1 and 4 years old.

Many adoptions from China and other countries are of children with special needs, children with medical problems, or older children.

However, the scandal of an American adoptive father sexually abusing his Chinese adopted daughter in December 2009 has cast a shadow over China-US adoptions and prompted calls for a post-adoption tracking system.

The China Center of Adoption Affairs, the agency entrusted by the Chinese government with inter-country adoptions, announced a series of measures to guarantee the rights and interests of Chinese adopted children, including a possible change in post-placement reporting policies.

It also suggested that all the government departments and adoption agencies conduct follow-ups on all children adopted from China.

Both China and the US are parties to the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption, an international treaty that exists in 76 nations around the world.

In all, the US government issued 11,059 immigrant visas to children adopted by US citizens. These children immigrated to the US from more than 100 countries and "found new homes in every one of our 50 states", said the State Department.

(China Daily 02/21/2011 page22)