Monday, November 25, 2013

Adoption Advisory: Luoyang City Orphanage, Henan Province

Over the past two years, we have worked with nearly a dozen families that have had their lives financially and emotionally destroyed by the adoption of children from the Luoyang orphanage.  We have written frequently about Luoyang and its deceptive "aging out program," but we feel it is time to re-iterate our deep concern for families seeking to adopt children from this orphanage:

Don't do it. 

Several adoption agencies have also not been acting in good faith as it relates to Luoyang.  Families we have worked with have written of their experiences with Luoyang, and the devastating impact these adoptions have had on their families.  They have admonished their agency to cease working with Luoyang, only to be told by their agency statements such as that even if the children are not really orphaned, the program allows children to come "to Christ" through adoption.  Adoptive families have been told that even if 90% of adoptions from Luoyang are fraudulent, to think about the 10% of the children who really need homes.  Thus, families are encouraged to see "the big picture" in their adoption, and not to speak publicly since that might discourage the "saving" of other children.

We recognize that the possibility exists for true orphans to be found in Luoyang, but families must recognize that it is impossible to confidently ascertain if a child is a true orphan or an area recruit for "education" prior to adoption.  The orphanage has worked hard to disguise these adoptions, have told the children to lie to their adoptive families about the true nature of their histories, and have emotionally manipulated these children into hiding the truth from adoptive families.  The CCAA, when confronted by angry adoptive families about Luoyang adoptions, responded with a letter to each family on March 20, 2013. After reviewing the official circumstances behind each family’s adoption, the CCAA made the following statement:

After the child was admitted into the CWI, to find an adoptive family for the children, the orphanage prepared and submitted their files as orphans for international adoption. Per the adoption laws and regulations of China, the provincial Civil Affairs Office was in charge of reviewing the child’s file and forwarded it to the China Center of Children’s Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA.) Following regulations and protocols the CCCWA matched the children with families. It’s not CCCWA’s responsibility to check the truthfulness of a child’s file and CCCWA has no means to decide if the information is accurate or not. Foreign adoption agencies are not authorized to check the truthfulness of information in a child’s file in China. 

The lack of transparency and the inability of adoptive families and agencies to obtain accurate information about a child pre-adoption should serve as major warning flags to all Chinese adoptions, but especially those from Luoyang.

Adoption agencies will try to make you feel guilty about not adopting from Luoyang.  They will tell you that if your don't complete the adoption, the child will be turned out onto the street, with no home or family.  In the case of Luoyang, this is almost always a lie.  They will indicate that it is normal for a young, healthy male child to come into the orphanage at 8 or 9 years old, and that older children can easily not remember who their birth parents are, where they lived, etc.

The red flags are almost always present in the finding statements of these children.  The trick is for adoptive families not to be conned by the agency, the CCAA, and the orphanage into adopting these children.  Doing so brings unhappiness to the children, the Chinese birth families, but especially severe financial, emotional, and sometimes physical jeopardy to the adoptive families themselves.

January 13, 2014:
Another adoptive family has decided to speak up about their experiences with the Luoyang orphanage: http://theadoptioncafe.com/2014/01/13/fraud-revealed/