Recent China Daily Articles

Here are a few articles about adoption, the one child policy, and child birth from China Daily:

Second child deserves hukou

The government has started the sixth census and indicated that second children of parents, born in violation of the one-child policy, can apply for household registration (hukou) without having to pay any fine.


In order to implement the strict family planning policy and check a population boom, some local public security authorities usually refuse to grant hukou to the second child of a family. But this penalty has no legal basis because not they, but their parents violated the family planning law. Refusing their application for hukou runs counter to the Constitution and deprives them of their citizenship and right of equality.

Invisible children

The second child usually has had a rough ride since the government implemented the one-child policy. In urban areas, they don't even have a birth certificate, let alone household registration. As a result, they have met with obstruction at almost every step of their lives. They could not get admission to public schools, or find government jobs after they grew up.


Though the restrictions have become much relaxed in recent years, they were still "undocumented". But now the government has begun looking at these children differently and granting them official status. These "invisible" children are on way to becoming "visible" and getting their rights.

Parents deliver U.S. citizenship

Wang Rong, who is six-months pregnant, is about to leave Beijing for California so she can give birth to her baby in the United States and give the child its first gift - US citizenship.


The special delivery will cost Wang and her husband, both white-collar workers in the capital, 100,000 yuan ($15,000), but they say it is money well spent.

The expenditure will cover all costs, including services before departure, medical care in the US and a three-month stay there, thanks to the help of a Shanghai-based agency that specializes in taking mainland moms to North America.

"Given the quality of educational resources and employment prospects in China, where there is a huge population and harsh competition, I want my baby to win at the starting line by obtaining US citizenship," she said.

Joy and pain for special needs adoption

It was love at first sight for Jill Crouch when she saw the 1-year-old Chinese boy in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in December 2008.


"We weren't sure what to expect but we were very excited to meet this beautiful little boy we'd known only through pictures for seven months," Crouch told China Daily.

Timothy, now 2 and a half, is a special-needs child with a cleft palate who was abandoned by his parents because they could not afford the medical cost.

"We are very lucky to have Tim," she said. "With him, we finally have a family."

* * *

 Despite the love Americans shower on their adoptive children, there are still problems, Huang Hai, a social worker and founder of the website daaiwujie.org, said.


Huang, who has researched the situation of more than 3,000 adopted Chinese children in the US, is trying to establish the Angels Alliance Foundation to help these children cope with the problems they face in adapting and growing up in a new country. "Children with special needs, or those adopted at an older age, are even more likely to have psychological problems, including a low sense of identity and getting hurt when they are bullied in schools or by adoptive parents in some rare cases," Huang said.

Just a mish-mash, but each interesting in its own way.  Your reactions?