China: Internet Ads to Adopt Children

Every adoptive parent who has adopted from China knows this rule -- there is no way to place a child for adoption in China;  it's illegal to do so.  That's why children are abandoned. But there is a growing trend toward birth parents trying to place children directly with adoptive families in China. From the Global Times:

Pei Yajun, a 21-year-old driver in Wuhan, Hubei Province, became desperate after his son, Yuchen, was born seven months ago. Instead of enjoying the new experience of fatherhood, he was consumed with anxiety over whether he could even raise his child after his wife left him.

"I am only 21. I cannot raise the baby myself because his mother left me for someone else," Pei told the Global Times.

In desperation, Pei turned to online forums QQ and Baidu, and searched for someone to adopt the boy.

"I want my boy to grow up in a happy family that can take good care of him," he said.

Pei's case is by no means an isolated one. Many parents, unable to find a legal channel to give away their babies, see this as their last resort. Baidu Tieba, a popular online community, even has one section dedicated to adoption advertisements.

"My baby is due in March, but I can't raise him or her since I'm only 19. I'd like to give it to anyone who promises to give him or her a good life," an Internet user named Lu wrote in Baidu Tieba's adoption section.

The replies came thick and fast. "We want your baby desperately! My husband and I have been married for 8 years, but we can't have a baby," said one of the 20 or so responses.

Thousands of similar threads, in which anxious middle-aged couples search for babies to adopt or desperate parents search for families to raise their children, can be found in various online forums across China.