Monday, September 8, 2008

Only One (or Two) Quake Orphans Have Found New Families

This is sad:

CHENGDU: Four months after the disastrous Sichuan earthquake, only one of 88 orphaned children eligible for adoption has found a new home, Sichuan officials announced. Zhang Anyun, a 10-year-old pupil with the Hanwang Central Primary School in Mianzhu, was adopted by an unnamed couple from the provincial capital of Chengdu last Friday, according to Li Boshan, an official with the Mianzhu municipal bureau of civil affairs.The Sichuan provincial department of civil affairs announced on Aug 23 that qualified mainland families could adopt 88 children orphaned in the May 12 earthquake.One reason for the slow response is that many of the orphans are handicapped, sources from the department said.

Read more here. Another article says that 2 quake orphans have found new parents.

It's still early days, of course. The list of 88 orphans was released only a few weeks ago. Still, with reportedly 10,000 prospective adoptive parents in China stepping forward to express interest you'd think it could move a little faster than this.

It's particularly distressing juxtaposed with the media touting changing attitudes toward disabilities by the Chinese in all the Paralympics coverage.

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