Big decrease in GZ workload coming up

[owenkrout]

The work load at GZ is set to decrease drastically as is business for the White Swan. China has decided to stop foreign adoptions. Just what that has to do with controlling SARS in China, I don't know.

 

AVOIDING INFECTION

China Suspends Adoptions and Sets Edict to Fight SARS

By ERIK ECKHOLM

 

BEIJING, May 15 — Seeking new ways to show it is effectively combatting the SARS epidemic, China today temporarily suspended most foreign adoptions of Chinese babies and announced severe new penalties, including execution, for anyone knowingly spreading the disease.

 

As of May 15, the China Center for Adoption Affairs will temporarily stop sending documents to prospective parents abroad, the agency said on its Web site. But adoptive parents already in China, and in some cases those who have made final travel arrangements, will be allowed to proceed, the agency said.

 

The decision to suspend new foreign adoptions was taken, "in light of the present epidemic of SARS in some countries and regions," the agency said, "in order to prevent movements of people that could lead to cross-infection and to thoroughly insure the physical health and safety of parties in adoptions and other relative personnel."

 

China, where the one-child rule has led thousands of peasants to abandon female infants, is a major destination for Western parents who want to adopt a child. The government here has supported the program, and today's announcement seemed intended to reassure prospective parents abroad that the disruptions will be minimized.

 

The new law against knowingly spreading SARS, technically a judicial interpretation of existing laws on infectious diseases, carries penalties ranging from 10 years in prison to death. It was announced only days after the government issued rules holding officials legally accountable for delays in reporting health emergencies and requiring rapid public disclosure of health threats.

 

There have been scattered reports of people with fevers or colds who, fearing they will be put into isolated "observation," evaded health checks or travel restrictions, and in a few cases criminal charges for negligence have apparently been brought. The harsher potential charges announced today would apparently apply to a deliberate, willful effort by a patient to spread the disease, something that has not been reported.

 

Because China's death penalty has been applied so widely for more ordinary crimes, and with few legal protections for the accused, civil rights advocates abroad expressed concern about the new ruling. But the rules appeared to be mainly a warning to the public that the government is treating SARS with the utmost gravity — part of the government's effort to show domestic and foreign audiences that despite earlier dissembling, it now means business in the fight against SARS.

 

Today's count of new cases in the last 24 hours was encouraging, with 52 reported nationwide and only 27 in Beijing. These were the lowest totals since the government pledged honest reporting on April 20, as the virus was spreading fast in Beijing. But international experts caution that a new surge in cases remains possible.

 

So far, few cases have appeared in China's rural towns and villages but the danger is great, the deputy minister of agriculture, Liu Jian, said at a news briefing today. Communities around the nation have been mobilized to check the health of all arriving people, and the central government is providing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to poorer counties so they can build safer hospitals and provide free treatment to farmers and migrant workers with suspected cases of SARS, Mr. Liu said.

 

Many citizens of Beijing have privately expressed disillusionment or anger over the government's initial impulse to play down the severity and extent of the disease, which hindered control efforts.

 

But today's People's Daily insisted, "The people have become more trusting and supportive of the party and government."

[ChinaRose]

Will the decreased work load in adoptions help us get our visas quicker? I was thinking that maybe these workers will be reassigned to handling visas.

 

I feel so sorry for the poor children who are the real losers.

 

[Mick]

I think this is a good news/bad news situation. Good news for those waiting on interviews and visas. Bad news for the parents and children.

[bobmal99]

Of course China, had to wait until the full effects were felt by their economy before they really took any drastic measures. But better late then never!!

[chinadave2001]

I would imagine their work load would also decrease as there ought to be an eventual decrease in the amount of k visas given that a lot fewer people will be travelling to China this year, making the chances of a union between an American and Chinese less likely....

Dave

[wolf]

Owen,

A friend of mine from Ca. told me last week about China stopping adoption of girls. He has a factory in ShenZhen and he and his wife wanted to adopt 2 girls. No one special, just 2 girls, but was told over a month ago by the Chinese that they were not letting girls be adopted now because of the low numbers of girls in China ratio of girls to boys. He was told that with many girls leaving China, many man are turning to homosexual behavior. Since young people are not too effected by sars. This maybe something the Chinese are using to stop the adoption of gilrs without going into the real reason. When ever I was in China, the women always seem to out number the men, but I know that many women can't bare children any longer because the government had them fixed if they had children and no husband.

[chinadave2001]

Owen,

A friend of mine from Ca. told me last week about China stopping adoption of girls. He has a factory in ShenZhen and he and his wife wanted to adopt 2 girls. No one special, just 2 girls, but was told over a month ago by the Chinese that they were not letting girls be adopted now because of the low numbers of girls in China ratio of girls to boys. He was told that with many girls leaving China, many man are turning to homosexual behavior. Since young people are not too effected by sars. This maybe something the Chinese are using to stop the adoption of gilrs without going into the real reason. When ever I was in China, the women always seem to out number the men, but I know that many women can't bare children any longer because the government had them fixed if they had children and no husband.

I remember reading in the New York Times last summer that in some provinces, the ratio of Boys to girls is as high as 1.14 to 1.0. That hjas to be a problem in the long term.

dave

[jameschun321]

Having more boys than girls is very normal for the Chinese culture. Boys have always been more "valuable and dependable" to Chinese parents. Females get married out to other males while a son can bring in a "daughter" to the family. This especially applies to China with their one child per family policy. China is just paying up for this way of thinking now.

 

JC

[chinadave2001]

There was a group of 50 adoptees and all their babies in the airport last december in Beijing. There were 49 baby girls and 1 boy.

Dave

[sarah36]

Maybe this policy is only temporary for sars. Sars is very annoying:(

[sarah36]

Even it's good for us, I'm still feeling bad for babies. There are many pathetic babies in China, some are orphants, some are born in very poor family so that they dont have money to buy food or clothes not to say school. Me and my friends used to help a girl to finish her primary school, who was in a far poor region. Hope she has grown up!

[tonado]

They said the reason to stop the adoption because of SARS. What about Chinese fiancees? I hope they won't do the same to foreign marriages.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prospective parents forced to wait as SARS prompts China to suspend overseas adoptions

By David Crary, Associated Press, 5/16/2003

 

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of Americans on the verge of adopting children from China are suddenly in limbo following Beijing's decision to suspend foreign adoptions because of SARS.

 

"My heart fell to my toes when I read the news," said Pete Uhl of San Antonio, Texas. But he and his wife are determined to press ahead with nearly complete arrangements to adopt a baby girl from China; the indefinite delay, he said Friday, "is just another bump in the road."

 

About 5,000 Chinese children are adopted by Americans each year, more than from any other foreign country. The adoptions frequently take 15 months or more to complete, at a cost to parents of $10,000 to $15,000.

 

Citing the persisting dangers posed by severe acute respiratory syndrome, the China Center of Adoption Affairs said Thursday that it has temporarily stopped sending documents to adoptive parents authorizing them to come to China. The government-run agency said other aspects of the adoption process continue, such as selecting children who are candidates for overseas adoption.

 

Chinese officials said parents who already had received travel authorization and made flight plans will be allowed to come to China and pick up their children.

 

Susan Cox of Holt International, an agency in Eugene, Ore., that handles more than 300 adoptions from China annually, said some parents with permission to travel were nonetheless postponing their trip, while most planned to proceed.

 

"We're trying to stay calm, but we're conscious of the fact that this is something that's never happened before," she said. "We're going down the road without a roadmap."

 

Diana Prause of Great Wall China Adoption in Austin, Texas, said what China is doing is appropriate. Still, "a lot of families are caught in limbo -- we feel for them."

 

Uhl, 53, and his wife, Sandra, 50, are among the Great Wall clients directly affected by the suspension.

 

They had been hoping to get their first photograph of their daughter-to-be within a few weeks, as well as a travel go-ahead. Now, nearly 18 months after the childless couple decided to adopt, they have no idea of the timetable.

 

"We've been waiting and waiting," Uhl said. "We don't care how long -- we just want a baby."

 

Uhl said he and his wife can endure the wait, but he hopes the uncertainty won't be a strain on his parents -- both in their 80s -- who were overjoyed last year when informed of the adoption plans.

 

Prause said Great Wall, which places about 500 Chinese children in U.S. homes each year, is continuing to work on pending adoptions, intending to move swiftly when the suspension is lifted.

 

"Our hope is to send planeloads of parents over there," Prause said. "We can bring the airlines out of their slump."

 

Even before the suspension, fears of SARS prompted Pearl S. Buck International of Perkasie, Pa., to cancel a trip planned for mid-May by 11 people hoping to complete adoptions of Chinese children.

 

"They're emotionally upset," said Michelle Cosner, the agency's marketing director. "It's such a long process, and there's a lot of patience involved."

 

But she also said the suspension of adoption-related travel might be a boon to some parents, relieving them of deciding on their own whether a trip to China was wise.

 

Adoption agencies that operate in the Far East are struggling to provide clients with up-to-date information on SARS -- referring them to the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and elsewhere. One particular concern, said Cox of Holt International, is whether visitors to certain regions of China might face a quarantine.

 

"Parents have to be prepared for a situation that's very fluid," she said. "It changes from day to day, even in the course of a day, and we're trying to be as vigilant as possible."

 

Partly because of the ailing economy, Cox said applications by Americans for international adoptions have been stagnant, or even declining, in the past year. She worries that SARS will further dampen interest in adoptions from Asia.

 

A single mother who completed her second adoption of a Chinese child in March, Christi Worthington of Menifee, Calif., expressed empathy with prospective parents whose plans have now been disrupted.

 

"It's got to be very devastating," she said. "But most adoptive families are really committed -- they're going to wait it out, and if they have the chance to travel, they'll risk it."

[sarah36]

No. ttlee_99, they won't do that for marriage. I think the two loved ones gettting together is not gonna held back by any body or anything in the world. B)

[AZwolfman]

No. ttlee_99, they won't do that for marriage. I think the two loved ones gettting together is not gonna held back by any body or anything in the world.  B)   

Well put, Sarah