In February 2001, a British newspaper published a photograph that horrified the nation and turned the accusing eyes of the world to China. A baby girl lay dead in a gutter in Hunan Province, while passersby went about their business all around her. According to the report accompanying the image, the baby girl was still warm when she was first discovered, meaning that she had only just died. Sadly, the scene in this photograph was not a one-off. Abandoned babies were (and still are) a common sight across the country, and in almost all cases, the infants in question are girls. Since the early 1990s, 100,000 of these orphans have been adopted overseas, forming one of the largest Chinese diasporas in history. But what lies beneath this phenomenon?

After the creation of the People’s Republic in 1949, Chairman Mao preached that the best way to glorify the new nation was to pro-create – in effect, telling the people to go forth and multiply. And multiply they did. Population specialist Professor Ma Yanchu had called for a national census back in 1953. Although Ma was persecuted under Mao for his radical beliefs, the census was carried out, and in June 1953, China’s population total was revealed to be over 550 million. Left unchecked, and egged on by the Chairman’s exhortations to have large families, this figure was nearing 1 billion by 1979. Just as Professor Ma had predicted and feared, China’s economy and development were hampered by the boom.

The closing debate at the Second National Symposium on Population in 1979 was to change history, and affect the lives of millions of people. Vice Premier Chen Muhua (the first female vice-premier in China’s history) put forward the idea of a “one child policy” to curb population growth. From then on, couples from the Han ethnic majority would only be allowed to have one child. Anyone caught flouting the rule would be liable for heavy fines. The controversial plan went ahead, with permission given to couples to try for a second child if their first was a girl. The figures imply that it was very efficient – some 400 million fewer people were born between 1979 and 2008 – but the figures alone aren’t enough to weigh up the success of the policy.

If it hadn’t been for the deep-seated, long-held preference for male heirs that still permeates every echelon of Chinese society, today’s population might not be skewed so heavily in favour of men (there are 60 million more males than females). As a result, millions of baby girls have been abandoned and the number of female foetuses aborted is thought to be 500-700 thousand.  A mixture of Confucianism and remnants of ancient land-rites means that boys are favoured in Chinese families, since they carry on the paternal line, and are the only ones who can honour their ancestors. A girl has traditionally been seen as a burden on a family, since she will eventually join her husband’s family. Raising a girl, so the saying goes, is like watering your neighbour’s garden.

As the one child policy was disseminated across China, stories of draconian enforcement began to circulate: forced abortions, drowning of newborns, sterilizations. The discovery of abandoned female infants became a common occurrence, and orphanages began to fill up with baby girls. The plight of these foundlings was brought to light by the 1995 British documentary The Dying Rooms in which Kate Blewett and Brian Woods posed as volunteer workers to gain access to orphanages around China. Images of babies tied to potty stools, toddlers rocking to comfort themselves and infants with untreated infections horrified the world. Although Chinese spokespeople countered that the scenes shown in the film were not representative of China’s orphanages, money still poured in from overseas donors and the state of welfare institutions improved.

By that point, overseas adoption of Chinese orphans had been going on for around five years. The first international adoptions were informal, individually organized affairs, and procedures weren’t put in place until 1992 when a law was passed permitting foreigners to adopt Chinese children. Adoption agencies sprang up all over the world, with the lion’s share opening in America. By 1995, there were around 2,000 adoptions from China to the USA every year; by 2005 there were nearly 8,000. The U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou formed a special adoption unit, and the White Swan hotel on Shamian Island became known as the White Stork, thanks to the countless adoptions that were finalized there. The adoption boom is currently slowing, since a rule change decreed that single parents were barred from adopting, and a 30 to 50 age limit imposed for couples (55 if adopting a special needs child. Indeed, adoptions of special needs children are often fast-tracked, and agencies sometimes waive fees).

That so many thousands of baby girls have left China to begin lives overseas is a bittersweet phenomenon. On one hand, it is a laudable exercise in international relations; on the other, it is the result of a well-meaning policy gone horribly wrong. What is a happy gain for countless overseas families is also a pitiable loss to the birth mothers of these baby girls, and as fulfilling as adoption is for the families it creates, the system taken away a generation of females from their culture and homeland. Because abandoning children is a crime in China, very few birth mothers ever come forward to be reunited with their daughters. American adoptive mother and author Emily Prager writes, in a letter to her daughter Lulu’s birth mother: “Forgive me… for my part in ripping off the women of China… If I did not feel that your daughter would be better off with me than in an orphanage, believe me I would not be doing this.”

Overseas adoption can be viewed as a mitigative measure for the human rights infringements associated with the one child policy. Sociologically speaking, the effects of the policy are beginning to be felt in China among the male-heavy generation that survived abandonment and abortion. “Little Emperor” syndrome, and the “one mouth six hands” phenomenon proliferate. And for the girls who are adopted overseas, their story is still unfolding. Filled with hope for these young exiles, adoptive mother Penny Callan Partridge writes, “These women of the world’s first international female diaspora will inherit the earth. And do something good with it.”

 

Related Links

Is it Time for Adoption Reform in China?
Good Girls Needn’t Apply: China’s Relationship with The Pill
50% Off Base: Why the West Gets China’s Abortion Discounts Wrong

 

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