Foreign families open hearts to Chinese orphans

Experts say Christians more open to adopting children with challenges

Foreign families, especially in the United States, are increasingly willing to adopt Chinese orphans with special needs, according to anecdotal evidence from experts and institutions.

China's Ministry of Civil Affairs says 2,887 international adoptions of Chinese children were finalized in 2014 - about 13 percent of the total 22,772 who were adopted. Of the foreign adoptions, 2,040 were by families from the US.

Although no official statistics show how many of the adopted children had disabilities, experts believe they can see a pattern in the willingness of foreigners to adopt children with special needs.

It comes from a combination of relative wealth, the state of development of healthcare and social services systems, and mature attitudes and Christian values, according to Ian Milligan, international lead of the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children, an organization based in Scotland.

"People with faith are more willing to adopt or foster children with special needs," he says. "It seems that Christian families, or people in the Christian community, are more willing to take disabled children."

Tong Xiaojun, head of the Children's Research Institute of China, agrees. He says: "Most children adopted by overseas families in recent years have special needs. Many overseas adoptions are done for philanthropic reasons."

One example is Hollywood actor Jim Caviezel, a devout Catholic, who adopted three children with special needs from China. Two of them have brain tumors, and the eldest boy, Bo, died of cancer in 2011.

The advanced medical and social evaluations available in some overseas countries helps families make their decision, Tong says. "Normally, they will factor in whether a more advanced medical system will help. If so, they are willing to adopt a child with special needs."

In 2005, China relaxed the rules for overseas applicants willing to adopt a disabled child. The parental age limit was raised to 55 from 50, and requirements connected to other offspring were lifted. Before the change, adopting parents were required to have fewer than five children under the age of 18.

With no hard figures available, adoption times may provide clues about trends.

It takes an applicant in the US five years or longer to adopt a healthy Chinese girl under 2 years old, according to Joshua Zhong, president of the Chinese Children Adoption International, based in Colorado, US.

That contrasts sharply with what the US State Department says was the typical processing time for a Chinese adoption in 2015 - 249 days. The average completion time was 282 days for all adoptions in 2014, suggesting that a significant portion of those may have involved children with disabilities on a faster track.

"Many overseas adopters are Christians who do not care whether the child has special needs," says the director of a child welfare institution in Shanxi province who asked to remain anonymous. "We had a 6-year-old who went to his new home in the US in a wheelchair last year. He was not even potty trained," he adds.

Deng Zhixin, founder of Angel Home, a nongovernmental relief agency in Beijing that helps disabled and ill orphans, says the maturity of parents underlies their adoption decisions.

"Many domestic adopters are not mature enough and are not willing to take children with special needs. Overseas families are much more open to that."