Thursday, November 13, 2008

Update on quake orphans in China

The BBC reports:

Only 12 children orphaned by the earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province six months ago have been formally adopted.

More than 600 children lost both parents in the magnitude-8.0 earthquake that left about 88,000 people dead or missing. But only a handful of these have completed official adoption procedures. Six months after the devastating earthquake, people in
Sichuan are still trying to rebuild their lives.

Quoting a senior official from Sichuan, the Beijing News said most of the orphans would be housed with relatives that were not killed in the quake. Other children will be adopted by non-relatives or live in orphanages.

Each child will receive 600 yuan ($88; £57) a month from the government until they are formally adopted or reach 18, the newspaper said.

The last report I posted about had only 1 or 2 of China's quake orphans adopted, so 12 is an improvement. And I don't see a problem with placing the children with family members, seems ideal, in fact. Previous reports said there were 88 children who were available for adoption with no relatives who could take them.

1 comment:

Jeff and Madeline said...

Glad to hear there is an increase, even slightly and it seems as if the task is not as overwhelming due to the fact that most of the children can go to a relatives home--happy about that. I hope the remaining children are finding families and getting the compassion and voice they need after such a tragedy.