Home>News Center>Life
         
 

Baby adoption case draws scrutiny in China
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-07 11:23

Liang Guihong is a goodhearted 56-year-old woman who finds homes for abandoned infants. Or she's a leader of a gang that sold abducted babies, some of whom were adopted abroad.

A court in southern China sentenced Liang last month to 15 years in prison after she was convicted, along with an orphanage director and eight others, of selling scores of babies 78 of them last year alone.


Charts shows child trafficking statistics in China. [AP Graphic]
Supporters say Liang and the others passed on foundlings to orphanages for free and are victims of a miscarriage of justice prompted by official zeal to stamp out China's black market in abducted or purchased babies.

The case is acutely sensitive for China, where thousands of babies are adopted every year by Americans and other foreigners, and the government wants to assure adoptive parents and its own public that the children are well-treated.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing says it has asked Chinese officials, who have a respected adoption system, to look into Liang's case and confirm that any babies adopted by Americans were orphaned or abandoned, not abducted or sold.

"It's certainly a nightmare for any adoptive parent to have that seed of doubt," said Meghan Hendy, executive director of the Joint Council on International Children's Services in Alexandria, Va., an association of adoption agencies and parents' groups.

"The adoption community wants orphans to find homes, not children who may have had a family that could have taken care of them in their own country," she said.

Thousands of babies are abandoned every year in China. Many are girls given up by couples who, bound by rules that limit most urban families to one child, want to try to have a son. Others are left at orphanages or by the roadside by unmarried mothers or poor families.

The United States is the No. 1 destination for Chinese babies adopted abroad. According to Hendy, Americans adopted a record 7,906 children from China last year, bringing the total since 1989 to 48,504.

At the same time, thousands of Chinese babies also are abducted or bought each year by traffickers and sold to families that want another child, a servant or a future bride for a son.


Page: 123



Madonna says daughter asked if she was gay
Hoffman bags Best-Actor Oscar
Rachel Weisz wins supporting actress Oscar
  Today's Top News     Top Life News
 

Five-year plan addresses pressing problems

 

   
 

Farmers want a 'land-leasing policy'

 

   
 

Co-ordination vital to curb human pandemic

 

   
 

China to fill strategic oil reserve in '06

 

   
 

Concern over hospital funding

 

   
 

Prosecutor: Moussaoui's lies led to 9/11

 

   
  Baby adoption case draws scrutiny in China
   
  Survey: Firms have little special perks for women
   
  Affluent couples dodging one-child policy
   
  South Africa's former No.2 acquitted of rape
   
  Housing proposal met with skepticism
   
  Bloggers grapple with the profit motive
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Feature  
  Could China's richest be the tax cheaters?  
Manufacturers, Exporters, Wholesalers - Global trade starts here.
Advertisement