China cancels adoptions of children from foreigners after 32 years

On Friday, September 6, 2024, the Chinese government announced a measure that marks the end of an era: the ban on the adoption of Chinese children by foreigners. The change, which has surprised many in and outside the country, puts an end to a practice that has been in place for more than three decades and which peaked in the 1990s, when thousands of children were adopted by families abroad.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mao Ning, was in charge of reporting on this new policy that seeks to “regulate the adoption of boys and girls” and that is part of a series of efforts by the Chinese government to face the new demographic challenges of the country.

International adoption of Chinese minors began to be promoted in the early 1990s, in a context of overpopulation. During that time, China implemented birth control measures that restricted families to having only one child, a policy that remained in place until 2015. This context led thousands of Chinese families, especially in rural and low-income areas, to give up their children for adoption, especially girls, due to cultural preferences for male children.

However, the demographic landscape in China has changed dramatically in recent years. The population is aging rapidly and the country is now facing a worrying decline in its birth rate. This situation has forced the government to reconsider past policies and focus on strategies to encourage population growth, including eliminating international adoption.

The decision to ban foreign adoptions has left hundreds of families in the process of adoption in various countries, such as the United States, in limbo, who were eagerly waiting to be able to give a home to a boy or girl from China.According to CNN, all adoptions outside the country will be prohibited, except in cases where the adopter is a blood relative of the minor. This has generated great uncertainty, especially for those families who had already advanced in the adoption process and who now do not know what the fate of their future children will be.

The US embassy in Beijing has already requested clarification from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs to better understand the implications of this measure. However, there have so far been no clear answers on how the Chinese authorities will proceed with cases that were ongoing before the announcement of the ban.

Juan Luis Leyva graduated from the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente in 2009 with a degree in Communication Sciences and has been working in the media since 2010 when he joined Debate. He covers various news sources on human and health issues. He won first place in the Vacunar para dar Oportunidades Award, organized and sponsored by Sanofi Pasteur, in the information dissemination category in 2019. He attended various national health conferences on diabetes and vaccines. He also writes on various topics focused on traditional medicine, herbal remedies, prevention of chronic diseases, and news from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris), the Federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco), and the Ministry of Health (SSA). He is currently the main editor of the information for the Health section at Debate.com.mx.

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