families
Uncertainty for families as China ends foreign adoptions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmwrpe3m3do
Uncertainty for families as China ends foreign adoptions
Nathan Williams
BBC News
- Published6 September 2024
China has announced that it is ending the practice of allowing children to be adopted overseas, bringing uncertainty to families currently going through the process.
A spokeswoman said that the rule change was in line with the spirit of international agreements.
At least 150,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad in the last three decades.
More than 82,000 have gone to the US, a greater number than anywhere else in the world.
At a daily briefing Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in the future Beijing would only allow foreign nationals who are relatives to adopt Chinese children.
She did not explain the reason for the decision, other than saying it was in line with international agreements.
Ms Mao thanked families “for their desire and love in adopting children from China”.
The ban on foreign adoptions has created uncertainty for hundreds of families in the US currently going through the process of adopting children from China.
In a call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it would “not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those cases covered by an exception clause. This position was confirmed by spokeswoman Ms Mao.
Washington is seeking clarification from China’s civic ministry.
China’s controversial one-child policy, introduced in 1979 when the country was worried about a surging population, forced many families to abandon their children.
Families that violated the rules were fined and, in some cases, lost jobs. In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, it often meant that female babies were given up.
International adoption was formalised in the 1990s, and since then tens of thousands of children have been adopted, with about half going to parents in the US – including celebrities like Meg Ryan and Woody Allen.
However, the international adoption programme has at various times come under criticism. In 2013, Chinese police rescued 92 abducted children and arrested suspected members of a trafficking network.
Critics at the time pointed to China’s one-child policy and adoption laws, which they said had created a thriving underground market for buying children.
A number of countries have expressed concerns about international adoptions.
Denmark has closed its only overseas adoption agency, over concerns about fabricated documents. The Netherlands has also said it will no longer allow its citizens to adopt children from abroad.
But Beijing has also altered the way it views children. In stark contrast to the position taken by officials at end of the 1970s, the country’s leaders now worry there are not enough babies being born to sustain the population.
In 2016 China scrapped the one-child policy and in 2021 Beijing formally revised its laws to allow married couples to have up to three children.
In recent years, the Chinese government also offered tax breaks and better maternal healthcare, among other incentives, in an attempt to reverse, or at least slow, the falling birth rate.
But these polices have not lead to a sustained increase in births, and in 2023 the country’s total population fell for the first time in 60 years.
Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vl5w3zy2eo
Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
Sanchia Berg and Katie Inman
BBC News
- Published 7 November 2024
Adopted children are likely to be allowed much closer contact with their birth families in the future as part of “seismic” changes recommended in a report published today. Some families say the changes are long overdue but others worry they may deter people from adopting. Angela Frazer-Wicks’ two sons were removed from her care and adopted in 2004, when they were aged five and one. She was in an abusive relationship and had problems with addiction and her mental health. By 2011 Angela had recovered, she was in a new relationship, and had a baby daughter. The local authority was not involved in her daughter’s care. Angela’s sons and their adoptive parents had stayed in touch with her writing letters and sending photos once or twice a year. But when the older of the two boys became a teenager, he told his adoptive mother he no longer wanted to write to his birth mother. Angela carried on sending cards, but heard nothing back for years. Then out of the blue, in 2020, Angela received an email from her eldest son. It turned out he had been trying to contact her, but the local authority had told him that wasn’t possible. Last month, Angela met her eldest son in person – it was the first time she had seen him for 20 years. “It was amazing for me,” Angela says, “even more so for my daughter – she’s waited her entire life to meet her brother.”
Adoption is the state’s most powerful intervention in family life. It is a permanent break between a child and their birth family, and alters the child’s identity forever. In law they are no longer the child of their birth parents, and most adopted children grow up without seeing or knowing any of their birth family. Around 3,000 children are adopted in England each year. It’s a process that must be authorised by judges in family courts, who set out the level of contact the child will have with their birth parents usually just letters, sent twice a year, via an intermediary. While adoption law has evolved over the years allowing children to know more about their history than they once did, in some ways, families say, adoption is still very much stuck in the past. Now a new report from a group set up by the most senior judge in the family court, external says wholesale reform of the system is needed. “Letterbox” contact between adopted children and birth families is outdated, the report says, instead recommending face-to-face contact where that is safe. The extremely detailed report is strongly supported by Sir Andrew McFarlane who says there is no need to change the law for this to happen. The report is likely to influence family court adoption hearings throughout England and Wales. Angela Frazer-Wicks describes her experience of adoption as a “life sentence without any right to appeal”.
As chair of trustees of the charity Family Rights Group, she is pleased mothers like her will have more chance to continue seeing their children after they have been adopted. “It’s a seismic shift,” Angela says. “It’s been such a long time coming. My hope is that we start to see just a bit more compassion towards birth families – they are so often seen as the problem.”
While meeting birth family can be very positive for some adopted children, face-to-face meetings aren’t good for all children in this position. When Cassie was adopted aged three, she constantly worried about the mother she’d been take away from. Out shopping with her adoptive parents Dee and John, Cassie would even ask if she could buy groceries for her birth mum. Dee was advised it would be reassuring for Cassie to meet her birth mother face-to-face. Their reunion, in a noisy contact centre, went well but the following day Cassie was very tired, pale and limp. Dee decided to take Cassie to the doctor, and by the time they arrived at the surgery Cassie was trembling and vomiting uncontrollably. But there was nothing physically wrong the doctor said Cassie was in shock. For nearly two years Cassie and Dee went to specialist therapy. Cassie still seemed to worry about her birth mother, and would try to call her on a toy telephone. Another meeting was arranged, in a quieter environment, with support. After that, Cassie, who is now aged 30, says she didn’t want to see her birth mother again. “I never felt a strong urge,” she says. “I had all the information about her.”
More reporting from family courts
With more recent adoptions, there is a new kind of risk. Children can trace their birth family online and some will go and meet them. That can lead to conflict with adoptive parents, even adoption breakdown. “The children become very emotionally mixed up,” says Sir Andrew McFarlane, the head of the Family Court in England and Wales.
“If you’re trying to work out who you are you in the world, and you have some memory of the family you lived with until you were four or five it’s almost natural to try and trace them and be in touch with them.”
Without expert help, this can have disastrous consequences. In 2021 one couple told the BBC it was “devastating” to see their two adopted sons turn against them and get drawn into crime, after they had been reunited with their birth family. There is no accurate data on how many adoptions break down. The charity Adoption UK has said it varies between 3% and 9%. Following a four-year review and consultation, the 170-page report published today says greater consideration should be given to whether adopted children “should have face-to-face contact with those who were significant to them before they were adopted”.
The report is intended as a review of the adoption process and a “catalyst for positive changes”.
Among the dozens of other recommendations are reforming the law on international adoption, and setting up a national register for court adoption records to make it easier for people to find their own files. The report also recommends dropping the term “celebration” for parents’ last visit to court with the child they are adopting. Many adoptive parents agree the current “letterbox” system of contact is not effective. In a 2022 survey, Adoption UK found that most prospective adopters believed that standardising direct contact would deter people from adopting, at a time when the number of people coming forward to adopt is in decline. But at the same time, it found that 70% of those looking to adopt believed that direct contact should be standard practice, if considered safe. Others think it could create further problems. Nigel Priestley is a specialist adoption solicitor and an adopter himself. He has seen the issues this contact can cause. “I think it’s enormously risky,” he says. “In my view there is a grave danger that if you once open Pandora’s Box shutting it will be impossible.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said the value of children growing up in a loving family “cannot be underestimated”. And for many children in care, “adoption makes this happen”.
“We know that adoption has a profound impact on everyone involved, and it’s vital that the child’s best interests are protected and remain at the heart of the process.”
Clarification 8 November 2024: This story has been amended following updated information supplied by Adoption UK