Is Zuyuan a Viable Option for Birth Parent Searching?

This essay was originally published on our subscription blog, but several readers felt it was important enough to be shared publicly.

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Imagine you are wanting to set up the perfect database to locate and reunite Chinese birth parents and adoptees. Imagine that the birth parents relinquished their child illegally, and could face potential fines or jail for doing so (at least in their own minds if not in reality). How would you go about doing this? How would you get the birth parents and the adoptees to submit their DNA to your database to be matched? And how would you do it on a large enough scale that matches would be likely?

Several logistical questions arise: What database? Who processes the DNA? Who pays for the database, DNA processing, advertising, etc.? How are matches made? How are the matches communicated? In which country would the database be managed?

These questions are important, especially when it comes to China. As you research, you learn that any DNA database that sets up shop in China by definition must partner with the national Chinese government, and that the government will "oversee" your operations. You learn that most of the current DNA databases don't use the most current DNA technology in order to save money. You learn that Chinese birth families are inherently suspicious, afraid of the government, afraid of being discovered for having relinquished a child. 

So, how do you locate birth families and convince them to participate in your project? How do you convince an adoptee to participate? How much do you charge, and to whom?

Adoptive families have sought a perfect solution to this problem for years. In 2014, we set up DNAConnect.Org as an attempt to provide a solution to the DNA problem. We structured our protocol based on the following assumptions:

1) Privacy -- Since birth parents are terrified of being discovered and "outed" to the Chinese government, it was important that no one in China have access to any information about birth families. Aside from DNAConnect and the adoptee, no one would know that a birth family was searching for a child, no one but the birth family would know when a match was made, and it would be impossible for the police or government to ever know that a birth family had relinquished a child.

2) Cost -- Due to the very real economic differences between China and the West, we felt the burden of the testing should be borne by the adoptive families, not the Chinese. This was a consideration both economically and practically: Chinese families are financially disadvantaged when compared to Western families, and their natural instincts would make it more difficult to convince them to test if there was a significant cost involved. 

3) Transparency -- If a match is made, we felt having an impartial mediator was important to insure that all parties were protected, and that no "qualifying considerations" would impact the decision to introduce the parties to each other.  This is critical especially in cases where Family Planning or kidnapping may have played a role, as these matches represent a potential scandal should word get out. In cases of impropriety, there is a significant incentive for the Chinese government to hide these matches. Thus, transparency is critical.  

These three considerations: Privacy, cost, and transparency are essential to creating a successful data base, and to safeguard the participants.  

Recently, families have been made aware of a new player in China, Zuyuan. Zuyuan is a private enterprise soliciting the DNA from Chinese adoptees, and ostensibly working to recruit birth families to also participate so that matches can be made.  Zuyuan itself is affiliated with a DNA company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province called "Gene Town." "Gene Town" is apparently a general purpose DNA processing company, with no focus on birth parents or searching (even references to this company are sparse, and we could locate no official company website). It appears that Zuyuan is simply utilizing Gene Town's DNA processing abilities, but has no official ties to the company. In other words, Zuyuan appears to using "Gene Town" to give itself credibility. 

Let us take a look at how Zuyuan has structured its program to see if there is a good probability that it will be successful, success being measured by random matches being made between unknown birth families and adoptees. Any DNA company can take two identified people and process a DNA sample for matching and confirmation. What is needed is for unknown families to be matched "randomly," without prior knowledge of their existence. 

First, Zuyuan has created a website directly targeting Chinese adoptees. Adoptees are presented with two choices: Purchase a DNA kit for $99, or upload already processed DNA from 23andMe, Ancestry, FamilyTree, etc.  There is no apparent cost to uploading.  Thus, Zuyuan's test costs the same as 23andMe and other U.S. companies. Since most adoptive families have already processed their DNA with 23andMe, Ancestry, or similar U. S. data base, we can't imagine that many adoptive families will purchase another kit; rather they will upload their child's DNA to Zuyuan. Thus, little revenue can be expected to originate from the adoptee side of the process.

Things get tricky when one looks at the Chinese side of the company. A Baidu search reveals virtually no web presence for Zuyuan inside China: A Baidu search for "Zuyuan" (祖源寻亲) brings no results for the company on the first fifteen pages of results, although one press story of a Dutch adoptee's search is seen. But results bring no Chinese website, no company information, nothing. It is invisible in China. As a result, no one that we have talked within China had even heard of them. This is a problem, at least in the short term. 

Zuyuan has set up a WeChat account that allows a birth family (if they ever were to come across it) to attempt to order a DNA kit. Clicking on the WeChat icon takes a birth family to a questionaire. Before they can order a DNA kit (supposedly), a family must answer the following questions:

1) Your name (Can use an alias)
2) Who are you looking for? Check a box next to "Daughter, Son, Older Sister, Younger Sister, Older Brother, Younger Sister, Other family member."
3) Where do you live? (Drop down menus for Province, City, etc.)
4) Your birth date (Year, month, day)
5) Your phone number
6) WeChat ID (optional)
7) Do you remember the birth date of the child you gave for adoption (Yes/No)
8) Do you remember the date you gave your child for adoption? (Yes/No)
9) How you gave up your child for adoption? (Sent to orphanage/government, put in public place, gave to "finder", gave to middle person, missing/kidnapped, other.)
10) Do you remember the exact location where you gave up your child for adoption? (Yes/No)
11) Does the given up child have any siblings? (Yes/No)
12) Do you agree to have your contact information shared in public? (Yes/No)
13-15) Upload family photo(s)
16) Tell your search story, including emotions, search experience, etc. (300 words or less)

The first question one should ask is why would Zuyuan want to know a lot of this information, and would a birth family complete this questionnaire if they ever found it? Adoptive families are already reticent to put their child's actual name on their 23andMe profile, for example, out of fear that in the future some insurance company might get the data. Imagine the anxiety a Chinese birth family would feel if asked "How did you give up your child," "what is your phone number?", your birth date, etc. In other words, most birth families will not complete this questionnaire. To get a phone in China one must show a government form of ID. Thus, requiring a family to put their phone number is demanding that they identify themselves to the company and the government.  This is not a small risk, like an insurance company knowing some disease characteristics of one's DNA. This is the government learning that a birth family committed a crime.  

Nevertheless, we asked five birth families inside China to complete the questionnaire with their actual information, including their actual phone numbers.  After taking several minutes each to answer each question (most require answers to continue), when they entered "submit" at the end all five received an error message saying "Your phone could not be verified." We are not sure what this error message means, but again it will cause birth families considerable anxiety to realize that Zuyuan is "verifying" any of the information they entered. 

One must wonder why Zuyuan has most of the questions on the questionnaire.  Given that it will, without a doubt, cause many birth families to not participate, one must wonder what the benefit is to Zuyuan? Why the need for the information on how a child was relinquished? Is it to allow Zuyuan to filter out which families they will or will not assist? Who knows. But these invasive questions are a significant red flag, and would prevent me, who does not even live in China, from encouraging a family to answer them. 

Cost is also a significant disincentive for a birth family to test using Zuyuan. It is expensive (699 yuan) for a birth family to order a DNA kit (assuming the birth family ever was made aware of the company) and Zuyuan encourages birth families to test both birth parents, doubling the fee. Zuyuan did admit to us that if desired only one birth parent needs to be tested, but the default option is to encourage both to test. This also betrays a "profitability" incentive on the part of Zuyuan. Combined with the need to have the birth family complete a questionnaire that asks questions and demands information that could jeopardize the privacy and security of the birth family themselves, several large and significant hurdles to participation by birth parents appear.  

But Jamie, one of the "founders" of Zuyuan, and probably an employee of "Gene Town", also creates issues. While in China Lan was contacted by Jamie through WeChat (it is unknown how he got Lan's WeChat ID, but probably from one of the many search articles that have been published). At first, he simply asked for us to send him the DNA results of one of the birth mothers we had tested. Lan asked him why he needed it, and he answered that he worked for Zuyuan. He indicated he was working with the Chinese government on a big DNA data base to help with the search. When Lan didn't answer his messages immediately, he became aggressive, sending Lan the "new rules" concerning DNA collection inside China, telling Lan she was breaking the law, etc., etc.  He asked if she worked for DNAConnect, again insisting that our work was illegal. These messages came through non-stop for days.  

The birth mother whose DNA Jamie sought was put in touch with Jamie by an adoptive family that contacted her as a result of seeing her search story on Facebook. The adoptive family sent her contact information to Jamie without any permission (we had already collected her DNA). Jamie contacted the birth mother through WeChat. As she tells it the following occurred:

"[Jamie] sent a request to add me. He said he could help me find my daughter. If anyone says they can help me, I always add them as a volunteer. He asked me to pay for DNA. I said that I have already done it, and I have done it inside China and abroad. He asked me how I did it in the United States. I said the same way as he told me to. Then he found out on the Internet that my daughter’s information is on your platform. When Jamie asked me, I would tell them that I had entered the DNA in the United States, and no one ever told me that I couldn’t say anything about it. No one besides Jamie told me that it was illegal. I can only say that the government sold my daughter to a foreigner. The government didn't help me find my daughter, ignoring me for three years. When I got in touch with Lan, I found out my daughter was adopted outside China. I am relying on my own for finding my daughter. I have to try whatever method I have. Otherwise, how can I feel at ease? My daughter has been missing for 18 years. I am uncomfortable in my heart. Ah, because of long-term anxiety, my body has been bad, now I can't walk for a long leg. I can't be heavy. I can't be too tired. I have been recuperating my body. Jamie asked me again and again to pay for DNA. I promised I would do it, but I really don't have the money to do it now. I said that I can make money when I am better. If you have money, you must do it. As long as there is a little bit of hope, I will not give up."

Jamie continued pushing this birth mother to pay for a DNA test, even when she told him she had already done one. That is why he hit up Lan asking for the results. 

So, what is the bottom line regarding Zuyuan? Several important points need to be emphasized:

1) If this birth mother had wanted to do some research on Jamie and Zuyuan before spending the money to get tested, there is nothing in Chinese available regarding the company. No website, no media stories, nothing that would give her any confidence that this is a reliable and serious data base. This could change with time, but at this moment Chinese birth families have no way of hearing about Zuyuan, or learning about it. For adoptive families this is a significant concern.

2) Assuming the birth mother decided to go forward, she would have needed to register with Zuyuan to order the DNA kit (ignoring the apparent website issues). The invasive questions in Zuyuan's questionnaire would no doubt give her pause, and make her second guess her decision. Since it is common knowledge that any DNA data base inside China must be overseen by the government, she would question if she wanted to expose herself by giving the circumstances of her child's entrance into the orphanage. Give the government her name? Phone number? Most would opt out at that moment.

3) The fees associated with doing the test provided a significant barrier to this birth mother, as it will no doubt be to most. On am income adjusted basis, the 699 yuan to a Chinese family is the same as $2,510 for a U.S. family (doubled if both parents are unnecessarily tested). Adoptive families must ask themselves how likely it is that a birth family will spend that kind of money. Few will.

4) It seems clear that Jamie is one of the primary sources for the current misinformation regarding DNA collection inside China. The recent "rules" relate to the commercial collection of DNA for profit and study by pharmaceutical companies.  "The licensing framework treats genetic materials as unique resources for the nation’s collective good and places them under stringent state control," write Yongxi Chen and Lingqiao Song in their analysis of the new rules. 

"This robust state control is mainly grounded on biosecurity considerations and the desire for national competitiveness. Anxiety over bio-piracy was triggered by media coverage of the Anhui incident in 1997. Two occupational epidemiologists affiliated with Harvard University collected blood samples for a genetic project from over 16,000 Chinese peasants in Anhui Province without appropriate informed consent, and were subsequently disciplined by the university. Prominent Chinese scientists, in particular Chinese geneticists, called for the government to undertake actions to protect the nation’s genetic resources against foreign exploitation. The enactment of the Interim Measures was a prompt response."  

I wrote Lingqiao Song, asking her how the new rules would apply to adoptive families testing birth families inside China: "Does the regulations of China outlaw the personal collection of DNA from a birth parent and transport of that DNA sample to the U.S. for processing by a non-Chinese DNA lab?" Lingqiao's response was short: "From my understanding, I do not think collection of blood outbound for parentage purpose is under the regulation of the interim ordinance of human genetic resource."

In other words, the "new rules" do not impact, affect, or have anything to do with the private collection and transportation of DNA outside China for birth parent searching.  

But Jamie, who is trying to get into the search market, is telling people, searchers, and adoptive families otherwise in an attempt to scare them into not testing located birth families, but rather have them pay Zuyuan.  However, it is cheaper, insures greater privacy, is more transparent, and presents a much better chance for success to test a birth family through 23andMe or similar, and uploading it to GedMatch. There is, in fact, no obvious benefit for a birth family to test with Zuyuan, and considerable downsides. 

Jamie inflates the relationships he has with other search groups on his webpage. Before today (July 22, 2019), his website asserted that Codis DNA from adoptees would be "transferred to all major Codis DNA databases operated by family member search Volunteer Groups in China." According to Jamie these groups include "Baobeihuajia, Help For Family Reunion, Di'An DNA Reunion and Jiangyin Tracing Volunteers." 

When we asked our friends at "Baby Come Home" (Baobeihuajia), "Help For Family Reunion" and "Jiangyin Tracing Volunteers" if they had ever dealt with Jamie, all three denied any cooperation, had not had DNA from Jamie uploaded to their databases, and were upset that Jamie was associating Zuyuan with their groups. Within four hours of our inquiries, Jamie had removed all mention of their groups on his website. It is unknown what databases Zuyuan utilizes, if any.

I don't know why Zuyuan is marketing so hard to the adoptive community, and spending so little resources gathering DNA from Chinese birth families.  Perhaps it is to try and again fragment the search community with yet another shiny bauble, or perhaps it is to allow the Chinese government to control the search narrative, and prevent "face-losing" stories from coming forth. Perhaps Zuyuan (Jamie) is sincerely wanting to help the search community, but is just loose with his facts and bad at business. But there is no doubt that they are making it easy for adoptees to send in their DNA, but very, very difficult and expensive for birth families. The invasive nature of their registration process, the high cost of processing, and the lack of transparency ensure that few birth families will participate. That should be a big red flag for adoptive families.  
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One final comment: We would love for a perfect solution to come about. We spend thousands of hours searching for birth parents, maintaining contact with those that have been located, shipping and processing DNA, etc., all for free. We do not take a single dime for this work. Thus, we would LOVE it if another option presented itself, to allow us to be free from this very real burden. We do it because we want to provide answers and solace to both birth families and adoptees. And we hope that one day it will help us locate our own children's birth families. But another solution would be very, very welcome.  

"The Truth About Intercountry Adoption's Decline"

A recent article by the Chronicle of Social Change entitled "The Truth About Intercountry Adoption’s Decline" attempts to rightfully refute assertions made by the National Council for Adoption (a pro-adoption lobbying group) that the decline in international adoptions is a result of increased regulations imposed by the U.S. State Department. After chronicling episodes that resulted, possibly, in fewer adoptions from countries such as Russia, South Korea and others (I say "possibly" because my area of expertise is not in those countries, and thus I am unable to ascertain the validity of those contentions), the article cursively mentions the declines seen in China, the adoption elephant in the room for the past two decades. 

Susan Jacobs, the article's author, makes the following assertion:

"Domestic adoptions have increased in some countries like China, resulting in a decrease in international adoptions."

Ms. Jacobs is not alone in making this assertion. In fact, the idea that domestic adoption is the reason for the decline in international adoptions has been promoted by "Love Without Boundaries," Holt International, and others. That the decline in international adoptions is a result of an increase in domestic adoptions from the orphanages is the conventional wisdom of the at-large adoption community.

And it is wrong.

What were the reasons for China's substantial decline? When did it start, and why did it happen? We have a lot of data that detail when it started, and we can rule out many reasons proposed by the adoption community and others as to why, including Ms. Jacobs' theory.  

First, let's establish some basic facts regarding China's adoption program. Receiving countries, including the U.S., publish annual adoption figures for all children arriving from foreign countries through adoption. This data show that intercountry adoptions from China peaked in 2005, when 14, 481 children were adopted to the U.S., Canada, Spain, and other countries (Graph has 14,397 due to my ignoring very small country adoptions. I include in the graph the U.S., Australia, Italy, Spain, the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Canada and France). That number declined to 10,759 in 2006, a decline of 25%, and fell nearly 20% the following year to 8,744 total adoptions. By 2017, only 2,211 total international adoptions were done from China, a decline of 85% from the program's 2005 peak.

To quickly eliminate one possible reason for the decline: Provincial finding ads mirror the declines after 2005, and thus it is known that the reason for the decline in China adoptions is "supply" related, not "demand" related. The increasing wait times, etc., prove that the declines are a result of fewer children being submitted for international adoption, not a result of fewer Western families wanting to adopt, an arrow in the heart of the "State Department is to blame" contingency.  

So, it is clear that something happened between 2005 and 2006 that dramatically altered the number of children coming into China's orphanages and being submitted for international adoption. Is it possible to "zoom in" and see what month the change occurred?

When we compile the findings by month of the top six adopting Provinces in 2005 (Anhui, Chongqing, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi), we can clearly see when the decline began. Looking at submissions for the twenty-four months between January 2005 and December 2006, a noticeable decline began in December 2005, when findings dropped from about 897 findings per month between January and November 2005, to 608 findings per average between December 2005 and December 2006. Findings continued to drop beyond 2006.  What occurred in December 2005 that can explain the nearly 33% drop in one month?

Long-time adoptive families will remember that on November 25, 2005, the Hunan trafficking scandal was revealed inside China and around the world. Prior to that event, families inside China were largely unaware of the international adoption program, and realizing that children were being "sold" to Western families angered many. 

Families can debate the "why" behind the Hunan scandal's impact on international adoption numbers -- Was it birth families avoiding the orphanage, or was it orphanage directors changing their programs, for example -- but there is no question that the scandal forever changed the face of China's program, both in numbers of adoptions, and the gender and health status of those adopted. The Hunan scandal is the dominant force behind the decline in China's adoption rates.

But to return to the original assertion. Has domestic adoption had any significant impact on the international adoption program? Have children been adopted to domestic families, resulting in fewer children being adopted internationally? It depends on how you look at the numbers.

China's National Civil Affairs Bureau compiles the total numbers of children adopted each year from China's orphanages, both internationally and domestically. The following graph (drawn from data published here and here) shows the number of domestic adoptions logged by all of China's orphanages (whether they participate in the international adoption program or not) between the peak in 2005 and 2015.

One can clearly see that domestic adoptions from orphanages have also trended down over the past ten years, but did see a small increase in 2006 and 2009. These increases did not, however, make up for the declines experienced in the international adoptions. Clearly, total adoptions from China have declined, not simply a movement of children from international adoption to domestic adoption on the part of China's orphanages.  

So, if the children were not adopted domestically or internationally, where did they go? 

It seems likely that the collapse in international adoptions after the Hunan scandal resulted in birth families inside China being more cautious when relinquishing a child. In other words, children that could not be parented that may have gone into an internationally adopting orphanage prior to 2005 were now placed in extra-legal domestic adoptions. Although it is doubtful that the agencies quoted above had this in mind when they stated that China's domestic adoption program was growing (it is not), they are still partially correct that more children were being placed informally, rather than allowed to enter an orphanage, even if that orphanage did not participate in international adoptions.  

To summarize: The single greatest reason why China's international program declined following December 2005 was the reporting on the Hunan trafficking scandal. Whether it was a result of increased awareness that domestic families inside China got that orphanages in China were adopting children to Westerners outside China for money, or whether orphanage directors changed their programs is not known with certainty, although orphanage-by-orphanage experience tilts probabilities to the former.  What is known is that orphanages with known incentive programs saw the steepest declines in adoptions, and many of those orphanages continue offering rewards for children to this day. China's domestic adoption program was also negatively impacted.  Thus, a statement that China's international adoption program declined because of an increase in domestic adoption from orphanages is incorrect, unless one attaches "informal" to "domestic adoption" and removes the orphanages from the statement.
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Are There Issues with China's SN Program?

If there is one question I receive from adoptive parents more than any others, it is this: "Do you think that orphanages have incentive programs to recruit SN children as well as healthy?" While the history of China's non-special needs program is filled with episodes of impropriety (baby-buying, Family Planning confiscations, etc.), there is much less data on the special-needs program. Thus, for the most part, we are left with assumptions. But there are some indicators. In this essay on our subscription blog (available for only a one-time $20 fee) we recount our experiences with the Changde, Hunan orphanage, and an interview with the birth mother of a SN child, both of which are data points we can use to access the integrity of China's SN program.

The Impact of the Hunan Scandal on China's Adoption Program

This essay was published orginally on our subscription blog in 2012, but seeing some recent comments by waiting families made me think the info might still be of some relevance to interested families.  
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I was reading a waiting family's blog last week, and saw a discussion about how slow the CCAA is referring children.  The waiting families were understandably frustrated that the wait has increased from a year to over five years since many of them have sent their adoption dossiers to China, and with only a small number of referrals taking place each month, many asked the question "Why?"

Answers have been thrown out to explain the increased wait time, running the gamut from the 2008 Olympics to a decrease in abandonments due to increased economic affluence and access to abortion.  Some uninformed families believe that children are still coming into the orphanages, but that the CCAA has implimented a quota system that keeps them there, hidden from the world, and unadoptable.  All of these ideas can be tested, drawing on evidence from China's orphanages.  By focusing on the data from China's main providers of internationally adopted children, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces, we can test each hypothesis to see if it stands up to scrutiny, and ultimately determine what exactly caused China's program to so radically change over the past ten years.

First, let's begin answering the question of why by answering an even more basic question:  "When did the wait time begin increasing?"  After we have determined that fact, we can go on to address why.


 DTC Wait Times

The first clue as to why jumps out when we look at the wait time graph above.  Through most of 2003, the wait time for families ranged from eight months to fourteen months, with the overall trend being a decline in wait times.  Wait times in 2004 were very flat, ranging from six to eight months, a situation that continued through 2005.  It isn't until January 2006 that wait times break out to the upside, climbing to nine months, a trend reversal that saw wait times reaching 41 months in August 2009 and 72 months as I write this.

 This graph alone eliminates most of the "macro" reasons for the slowdown in referrals.  While there is little question that abortion and increased economic wealth have a global impact of abandonments, these changes occur slowly, over years, if not decades, not suddenly in the space of a few months as we see above.  Clearly something happened in late 2005 or early 2006 to cause wait times to increase, for the graph above points to a dramatic change in the "supply-demand" equation of China's program.  Either the number of children being referred declined in January, or the number of families submitting files to adopt increased sharply.

I say "supply-demand equation" because, at its most basic, that is what the wait time represents.  It is very much like a line at the corner coffee shop.  The shop can produce a limited amount of coffee each morning. If a Cappuccino machine breaks, the processing of customers begins to slow, and the line of waiting patrons increases, and further increases if morning commuters continue to get in line.  If an employee is particularly adept one morning at making the brew, he is able to serve the shop patrons more quickly, and the line shrinks.

 Imagine that the China program is represented by a single day at the coffee shop.  Obviously one would expect the number of abandonments to change due to macro influences like abortions and rising incomes, but since these changes would occur over a very long period of time, they would not impact the program in the extreme short term.  Such changes would be analogous to a rise in coffee prices -- they would have little impact on the number of people coming into the shop on any given day.

What we see in the graph above is akin to the complete shutdown of nearly all the coffee makers in the shop.  Only one machine continues, and the line of customers has begun to increase out the door and down the block.

"But," one might ask, "how do we know if the machines have broken down, rather than a bunch of new patrons are getting in the line?  Perhaps the 'supply' has remained constant, and the number of customers has simply increased."

A view of total adoptions from China shows that the number of adoptions being completed peaked in 2005, and fell by more than half by 2008.

 Clearly this is not a demand problem, since the patrons for China's adoption program are still stretched out the door and down the block.  The falling adoptions can only be a result of falling supply -- China's program experienced a sharp change in how much coffee it can produce, or to make it more accurate, how many children are available for adoption.  We will focus our attention on four Provinces in the discussion that follows: Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces.  These are the four largest adopting Provinces, accounting for over half (57%) of all submissions in 2009.



 One thing becomes quite clear when comparing the orphanage submission numbers above with the wait time graph at the start of this essay -- they are nearly perfectly inverted.  In other words, when submissions were at their peak in 2003, the wait time was at its minimum.  When submissions dropped in 2006, the wait times increased as a result.  This, of course, ignores the increasing demand seen over these years, but clearly something happened between 2005 and 2006 to drastically change the number of children entering the orphanages. 

So, what game-changing event occurred around January 2006 that would change the equation so dramatically?  Possible explanations include China's signing the Hague Agreement in September 2005, and the Hunan Trafficking scandal in November 2005.  No other event that I am aware of took place that would have such a substantial impact on China's orphanage program in such a short time frame.

If we zoom into 2005 and 2006, we can see if there is a specific month when things changed.  This would allow us to decide if signing the Hague Agreement was the cause, or if the Hunan scandal was at fault.  Fortunately, we can break down the findings for these four Provinces by month:



 Here one can graphically see that all four Provinces (Guangxi = Blue; Guangdong = Pink; Hunan = Yellow; Jiangxi = Rust) saw their finding rates substantially fall beginning in December 2005, with another steep drop being seen in February 2006.  By April 2006, submissions from the top four Provinces had declined from a little over 300 children per month to about 100, a decline of over 66%.

Other Provinces saw similar declines. While the Hague Agreement was ratified in September 2005, the Hunan scandal broke on November 25, 2005, with the trials taking place in February 2006.  Both events were accompanied by substantial national press attention inside China.  The timing of these two scandal events coincides perfectly with the decline we see in findings in our four Provinces.  Thus, it seems clear that the scandal is the cause for the slow-down, and not the Olympics, signing of Hague, or any of the other macro forces proposed.

Besides the slowdown in findings, what other characteristics of China's program changed concurrent to the Hunan scandal, and after?  One significant change occurred in the gender ratio of the children submitted. While overall findings declined after 2005, the decline was limited exclusively to females; male findings continued increasing unabated, as they had since 2000 (2011 is under-represented since many findings from 2011 appear in 2012 finding ads).



 In February 2006, a few weeks before the trials for the Hunan scandal directors was set to begin, the CCAA met with the major orphanage directors in Tianjin.  At this meeting, the focus was encouraging directors to submit as many files as they could, even special needs children that the directors may have felt were unadoptable before the scandal.  As a result, submissions of SN children began to increase.  Many of these children had been found many months, if not years before the scandal broke, and were residing in the orphanages, viewed as unadoptable before the February meeting.  But following the meeting, directors began processing the paperwork for these children.  When one graphs the average time between the finding date and the finding ad publication date from 2000 to 2011, one can easily see how the submission of these older children began to increase average "lag times" beginning in 2006.



Between 2000 and 2005, the orphanages published finding ads (the first step to an international adoption) within about 100 days of finding a child.  Hunan Province was the most "efficient", publishing ads on average less than 80 days after finding, while Guangdong was the least "efficient", averaging about 150 days between finding and finding ad publication.  "Efficiency" declined sharply in 2006, as orphanages began submitting children that had been found long before for adoption.  Guangdong's orphanage "lag time" hit a peak of almost two years in 2009 as they responded to the CCAA's pressure to submit previously unadoptable children (This discussion makes the assumption that the finding dates listed are accurate.  There is evidence that such may not be the case in all instances, and that children, particularly older children, have their finding dates artificially altered to much earlier. I have not seen evidence that this is widespread however).

Speaking in generalities, the impact of the Hunan scandal on China's program can be summarized in the following ways:

 1)  Prior to the scandal, the children submitted for international adoption by the orphanages was overwhelmingly female.  Although male children have been increasing in total numbers since 2000 (displaying a trajectory that one would expect from changes in Chinese culture on a macro level), the extremely high number of female submissions resulted in a gender ratio in excess of 90% female through 2005.

After the scandal, the number of female submissions declined substantially across China, while the number of male submissions held steady or increased.  This has resulted in the gender ratio falling, with the current ratio approaching parity.  Since male findings have increased, it is the sharp drop in female submissions that is driving this dramatic change in ratios.

2)  Prior to the scandal, special needs submissions were relatively rare, with over 95% of children adopted classed as "healthy".  With the decline in overall findings, and the push by the CCAA to submit "warehoused" special needs children, the number of special needs adoptions has increased dramatically, both in real numbers and as a percentage of total adoptions.  These increases are a result of orphanages submitting children found in prior years (increasing the average "lag time" between finding and finding ad publication), and an increase of findings overall.  In other words, orphanages are "finding" more special needs children now than before 2006.

There is no doubt that the collapse in adoptions from China after 2005 is a result of the Hunan scandal. Reasons proposed by members of the adoption community, including China's artificially reducing adoptions in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics, China's signing of the Hague Agreement, or the establishment of submissions quotas, lack any evidence.  Additionally, orphanage directors directly refute these notions, plainly stating that there is no limits imposed on orphanages on the number of children that can be submitted to the CCAA for adoption.  Steps taken by the CCAA since 2005 also contradict this idea.  The increase in adoption donation, the change in domestic adoption laws, the recent broadening of "orphan" definitions, are all intended to increase the number of children coming into orphanages for international adoption.  While adoptive families hear that the Chinese government is intent on lowering the number of children adopted, all of the evidence shows the opposite -- that the CCAA is desperately trying to increase the size (and revenue) of the program.

The only question that remains to answer is why the number of children found across China fell so sharply in December 2005 and February 2006.  Was it because orphanage directors realized that many of them were breaking the law, and stopped their incentive programs?  Or was it because the publicity surrounding the scandal actually altered the abandonment frequency across China?

We will save this question for a future essay.







 

Time to Change the Usual "Story"

Recent announcements by the Chinese government made the following essay from our subscription blog timely. 
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I can't even remember what prompted the conversation, but it involved the topic of our work, and a story we were working on.  As we were eating dinner in our backyard a week or so ago, my youngest daughter Meilan asked how she had come into the orphanage.  When we first adopted her, she displayed some mild anger issues, and one day soon after coming home she explained that she never understood why we had brought her to the orphanage.  We gently explained that we had not brought her to the orphanage, but that we had adopted her from the orphanage.  "We have videos we can show you of your adoption sweetie.  We would never have brought you to the orphanage."  Later we found out the reason for her confusion -- her birth family had brought her to the orphanage, relinquishing her under the guise that she would be educated "in the city" and then returned to them.

So, here we were, eight years later, discussing some aspect of our research, and our youngest asked "Was I brought into the orphanage?"  Before my wife or I even had a chance to answer, our oldest, Meikina, turned to her youngest sister and, with contempt on her lips, flatly stated.  "Meilan, we were left on the side of the road by our birth mothers."

The contempt was not for her sister, but for the thought.  Meikina viewed the idea that her birth mother had abandoned her on the side of the road with pure contempt.  Meilan, confused by Meikina's answer, turned to me and asked, "Is that true?"

I used to think so.  I entered the China adoption program in 1996, a result of the controversy surrounding the "Dying Rooms" and publicity over China's "orphan problem".  I, like thousands of other families then and now, assumed that the children in China's orphanages had ended up there through anonymous abandonments at places like the Civil Affairs Bureau, an area school, or the local hospital.  The abandonment stories of my daughters became almost holy, with reverential visits to the finding locations, emotional interviews with finders, and sacred "Lifebooks" with photos, maps, and drawings.

In 2000, I returned to China and interviewed one of Meikina's two finders.  She recounted how she had been walking to work with her coworker one morning, had heard a baby's cry over the noise of the crowd, had investigated and found a cardboard box containing a small, two-day old baby girl.  As she described it, the baby was dressed in "countryside clothes", had an empty bottle lying next to her, and two hundred yuan in cash with a red birth note.  The finder's words became a sacred text for me, and I would journey to the Civil Affairs Bureau whenever I was in Dianbai, to sit and watch the location, imagining over and over Meikina's finding as described by her finder.  For me, it was clear that Meikina had been abandoned on the side of the road by her birth mother.

The Hunan scandal of 2005 was the first crack in the veneer of authenticity for me and our adoptions, and those of many others.  Here was an event that seemed to contradict everything we knew about China's orphan problem.  Testimony given in that trial showed that rather than having more babies than they could handle, as had been commonly assumed by Westerners, that in reality by 1996 orphanages in Hunan, Guangdong, Chongqing and Sichuan were beginning to feel pressure to go out into the countrysides surrounding their orphanages and look for kids.  Employees began to be pressured to find kids or lose their jobs; rewards began to be offered for each child brought to the orphanage.  In the Duan case alone, over 1,000 children were moved from near and remote distances to the Hengyang County, Qidong, Hengshan, and other Hunan scandal facilities, and stories fabricated for each child: "Found abandoned at the bus station," "found abandoned at the Xinhua Book Store," "Found abandoned at the Hengyang Meat Processing plant."  The Hunan scandal records show that over 95% of the children adopted from these orphanages had not been abandoned, but had been transported from other areas, where "finders" had received the children from birth parents.  Rather than being abandoned, these thousands of children had been "relinquished", a term that more accurately conveys the chain of custody that occurred.

The Hunan scandal served as the "paradigm shifter" that allowed future research and media investigations to reveal that issues of baby-buying,  Family Planning confiscations, and other extra-legal methods of obtaining children were frequently and pervasively used by orphanages to procure children for adoption.  First-hand accounts of birth families, foster families, Civil Affairs officials, and finders reveal that nearly every orphanage in Chongqing, Jiangxi, Hunan, and the other large supplying Provinces employs some manner of "incentive program" to recruit children into their facilities.  Some pay money, others work with Family Planning, others make false assurances to birth families of education and other opportunities in order to have those birth families relinquish their children.

Thus, for the vast majority of children adopted from China, the official story of how they came to be in the orphanage is a falsehood, created by orphanage directors in order to be able to submit a child for international adoption.  The description of their being found at the gate of some facility by some unnamed or named individual is almost always a lie.  In the lion's share of cases, the children submitted for international adoption were "relinquished" -- given by their birth families to someone, who in turn brought the children to the orphanage.  Only a small percentage of children were truly simply found abandoned.

Why does any of this matter?  Because I believe that for a child to be told their birth family "abandoned" her when that is not the case creates a feeling of contempt and anger for a birth parent where none is deserved.  My wife Lan returned to re-interview Meikina's finder last year, over ten years after my visit.  This time there was no orphanage director sitting "disinterested" nearby as she was asked the questions.  This time the interviewer (my wife) knew the right questions to ask, when to accept and when to question further.  This time the truth was recounted -- that the story of Meikina's finding was a fiction, that her finders had no idea where Meikina came from.  This time the orphanage director confessed, in the face of this contradictory evidence, to having built a fairy tale in order to get Meikina adopted.  Do I know she wasn't found abandoned in 1997?  No, but I now know enough about her orphanage to seriously question whether children were found abandoned, rather than being "relinquished" by the birth family directly or indirectly.

So, at that dinner last month I told my daughters that.  I told them that we had always been told that children had been abandoned by their birth families, left at various locations to be found by others.  But I told them that our research had caused us to question whether that was true.  I told them that in our experience, almost all of the children for whom we had done research showed that they had not been abandoned, but that rather they had been given by birth parents to people who arranged for them to come into the orphanage.  We explained that the reasons were complicated, but that it was very unlikely that their birth families had really abandoned them on the road as Meikina had stated. 

As I thought back over that conversation, I wondered at the tone of Meikina's statement.  There was some real pain in her comment, and I wondered if it was real, or just my imagination.  So, as we are wont to do in our house, we conducted a poll.  I asked all three of my girls to rate, from 1 (highly negative feelings) to 10 (very positive feelings), how the following descriptions made them feel:

1)  I was abandoned by my birth family at the gate of a school
2)  I was relinquished by my birth family and brought to the orphanage

I chose "relinquish" (which I had to interpret for my girls) because it is as neutral a term as I could come up with.  The word itself carries no connotation of impropriety or corruption; rather it simply implies that a child was transferred from one person to another until they reached the orphanage.  Thus, the comparison is really between being left "alone" (abandonment) or being constantly supervised (relinquishment).

The results were interesting, but not unexpected.  In answer to the first scenario (being abandoned) the girls assigned an average score of 2.6.  This score hides one completely neutral score of 5, because, as Meigon explained, she did not find the scenario overly emotive.  The other two assigned a 1 or 2 to the scenario (highly sad).

The average score rose substantially for the second question, using "relinquished", with the average score rising to 6.6, with individual scores falling between 6 and 7.5.  Meilan explained her increase, going from 1 to 6, with these words:  "In the second case I was protected, and in the first case people might not reach you in time."

I think, given the overall realities of China's adoption program -- the abundant evidence of ongoing ethical breaches, the documented instances of widespread baby-buying, and the stories of Family Planning campaigns and abuses -- that adoptive families would do well to "re-invent" the traditional story of how their child came to be in the orphanage.  Rather than promoting an "abandonment"-centered history, with the customary photos, visits to the finding location on heritage trips, etc., more accurate and more emotionally satisfying to our children would be a "relinquishment"-centered story-line.  This would involve the blunt admission that we simply don't know how our kids came into the orphanage most of the time, but that the evidence in most instances suggests that our children were transferred, person to person, to the orphanage.  Not only is this scenario likely to be most accurate in the majority of cases, but it will be emotionally healthier for our children.

Old News? Not to the People in China

The news this week that Chinese Family Planning officials had raided a small farming community in rural Hunan Province and confiscated nearly twenty young children has citizens in China understandably outraged (a Baidu search this morning shows over 600 independent postings in various newspapers, websites, and other media). While this news is familiar to attentive people in the West (we publicized it in October 2006, and it was later investigated by Dutch Television and the L.A. Times), aside from a small legal notice published in China, the case was unknown.

Family Planning officials are already despised by most Chinese, due to their ability to blatantly and capriciously impose their will on local families. As the New York Times described it, villages and towns are often "private fiefdoms run by local party officials." This story, in which Family Planning officials confiscated children to "sell" to overseas foreign families through the area orphanage, has ignited a firestorm of outrage in China, most of it directed at the Family Planning establishment.

This anger is largely misdirected. Although the Family Planning officials are certainly guilty of a myriad of sins, the majority of the guilt for these events should be directed at the orphanages themselves.

Most would assume that orphanages in China are set up to care for abandoned children found scattered around the countryside. What is usually overlooked is that with the introduction of international adoption in 1992, fees paid by foreign families has become a substantial source of revenue for China's social welfare program, revenue that is used to build lavish and impressive orphanages and Old Folk's Homes, used to "benefit" local and Provincial authorities, and used to pay the salaries of an entire bureaucratic structure dedicated to international adoptions. Everyone involved in China's international adoption program has an incentive to keep the program going. The payoff is obvious -- for every child adopted by a foreign family, the orphanage receives $5,000 (35,000 yuan) in "donations".

The Gaoping Family Planning confiscations have their roots not in the Family Planning restrictions, but in the Shaoyang orphanage. Area residents reveal that before 2000, Family Planning officials would punish a family for having an overquota child by smashing their furniture or destroying their homes. "Since 2000 they haven't smashed homes. They abduct children," one local resident stated. The change occurred when the orphanage began to reward the Family Planning official who confiscated a child with 1,000 yuan cash. Now, instead of having to expend energy smashing a couch or end table, the officials could simply take the child and be paid nearly a month's salary as a reward.

In 2005, six orphanages in Hunan Province were caught buying babies from area traffickers. Although those six orphanages largely ceased participating in the international adoption program after the exposure, many other orphanages inside China have continued to buy babies from traffickers unimpeded. Press stories by ABC News, the L.A. Times, and others show that buying babies is still prevalent, and statistical analysis reveals that a majority of children adopted from China entered the orphanage through Family Planning confiscations, outright purchase, or through other "incentive" programs. Rather than being safe-havens for unwanted and abandoned children, China's orphanages are more accurately described as businesses, seeking to maximize its benefit like any other profit-seeking enterprise.

China's problems are by no means unique, as similar scandals have been seen in Ethiopia, Guatamala, Vietnam, Romania, and nearly every other sending country on earth. These problems will persist until the "profit-making" structure of international adoption is changed. Until an orphanage can no longer receive substantial cash donations from foreign families for a child that they can obtain for relatively little outlay, enterprising orphanage directors will continue to make "deals with the devil", whether those devils be area baby traffickers or the local Family Planning officials.

Putting the "Quota" Myth To Bed

One would think that the history of the China program over the past five years would dispel any notion of the CCAA trying to control the number of adoptions performed each year, but there is still the belief among many adoptive families that the current wait time is more a function of the CCAA preventing the adoption of children rather than there simply being children to adopt. Some adoption boards speak of "Only a small percentage of the orphans in China have paperwork created that makes them eligible for international adoption" or "China is never going to allow all of the babies to be adopted through IA" are commonly seen.

It is easy to understand why agencies and other adoption "advocates" continue to feed this misconception -- if it is recognized that the decline in adoptions is the result of a decline in findings, then it will be largely recognized that the need for international adoption from China has also decreased. Thus, the misinformation concerning any "quota" program is largely driven by financial, emotional, and other self-interest considerations, not by facts.

One would think that the many stories of baby-trafficking (Hunan, Jiangxi, etc.) would cause any attentive inquirer to ask why orphanages would traffic in children if they were unable to process the children that they purchased. Why would stories such as Zhenyuan occur, where Family Planning worked with the area orphanage to confiscate children solely to submit them for adoption.

In reality, the idea of a "quota" system runs contrary to all evidence and logic, yet some adoptive families continue to use a "quota" system as an explanation for why China's program has seen such dramatic declines.

Two months ago I checked in with two trusted orphanage directors with whom I keep tabs on the China's adoption program from inside China. Although I have had many discussions about the declines in adoptions in the past with many, many orphanage directors, I thought I would address the "quota" idea head-on by asking them direct questions as to how they do their jobs, which files they submit, any limitations they have, etc. I interviewed two directors, one in Guangdong Province and the other in Jiangxi Province. I will pose the question, and then give answers given by both directors.

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Q: How long have you worked in the orphanage?
Guangdong: Eleven years.
Jiangxi: I have been the director since we began international adoptions in 1999.

Q: How many kids are in the orphanage now?
Guangdong: Not many. About 20 kids.
Jiangxi: Very few.


Q: Has the CCAA ever had a limit on the number of children the orphanage could submit for adoption in a year?
Guangdong: They don't have the ability to set up a rule like that. However many children we have in the orphanage, that's how many we turn in to the CCAA.
Jiangxi: No, they don’t have any limit. We are free to send as many kids as we can for adoption.

Q: What about submitting a file to the Provincial Civil Affairs or the CCAA. Do you need to pay a fee to send in a child's file for adoption?
Guangdong: No, there is no fee.
Jiangxi: No, I don’t need to pay any fee. When I turn the adoption paperwork into the Provincial Civil Affairs, they need to pay money for postage to send the file to the CCAA. But we don’t have to pay any money. We just need to take some pictures of the child, and bring the pictures and the file to the Provincial Civil Affairs.

Q: Has it always been this way? What about now, is it the same?
Guangdong: I have worked at the orphanage for over ten years. In that time it has always been that way.
Jiangxi: Back to that time (1999), they had a quota of 20 to 30 kids that we could turn in for adoption, but after 2000 there has been no limit anymore. We can turn in as many kids as we can.

Q: OK, it seems that there are fewer and fewer children being sent into the orphanage. Why do you think that is?
Guangdong: That is true. I think it has something to do with our country's Family Planning rules.

Q: Has the CCAA ever told you that you can only submit a certain number of Special Needs children?
Guangdong: No, never happens.
Jiangxi: No, there is no limit either. The kids that have problems with their arms or legs, you can still turn in for adoption. Only the children that are severely mentally disabled are not submitted for adoption. If the child is only slightly mentally disabled, can they still be sent for international adoption.

Q: Are there any local families that adopt from your orphanage?
Guangdong: Very few.

Q: Hey, it seems that fewer and fewer children are coming into your orphanage, which means that there are fewer children being turned into the CCAA. Does the CCAA have a problem with that?
Guangdong: There is nothing we can do about that. If there are no children brought in, there are no files to submit. The number of children is going down across the whole Province.
Jiangxi: No, they just let us know that if we have any kids, we should send the paperwork for IA. If not, that is fine.

Q: Does the CCAA pressure you to turn in more children?
Guangdong: They won't.

Q: But if the orphanage has no children to submit for adoption, that means the CCAA will one day have to close.
Guangdong: That won't happen.

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From the above conversations, it is clear that the CCAA has installed no limit on the number of files an orphanage can submit. In fact, the CCAA seems to be making it easier for orphanages to submit files, especially for SN children.
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Q: It seems that there are so many SN children sent for international adoption now. Is that because the rules have been relaxed?
Jiangxi: Yes, it is not hard like before. Now, any SN child that we have can be put on a website with the CCAA for families outside China to look at. If there is a family interested in adopting that child, the CCAA will contact us and have us start doing the paperwork for IA. Now, for the SN adoptions, it is very relaxed.
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It is clear from these two directors that there is no quota in place. In fact, it is the opposite -- the CCAA encourages them to submit nearly every child they receive into the orphanage. Not only are there no fees to submit a file to the CCAA, but the finding ad publication fees, postage fees, etc. are borne by the Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, not the orphanage. Thus, there is no reason for an orphanage to not submit a child for international adoption, as some have speculated.

This topic would not be germane if it didn't go to the root of the China adoption program. People who promote a "quota-driven" paradigm in China suggest that the orphanages in China have large numbers of healthy children that are languishing in the orphanages due to the Chinese government's desire to artificially limit the number of adoptions that occur each year. Under such a scenario there would be no incentive for an orphanage to recruit children, since, according to this model, there are already many children in the orphanages. One would also anticipate that the submissions that were turned in would be for older children, since those children are the most costly to house and care for. Thus, under a quota system, one would expect finding ads to be largely for children found many months or even years earlier, as the orphanages seek to promote the adoption of their most costly children.

But that is not what we see. While there are a few exceptions, in almost every case the finding ads for children are being placed within a few weeks after a finding. The children being submitted are largely newborn infants. Repeatedly we read stories of orphanages seeking ways to increase the number of children coming into the international adoption program, either with money (Hunan, Jiangxi), Family Planning coercion (Hunan, Guizhou) or deception (Henan). The people responsible for submitting children, the orphanage directors, deny that there is any limit on the number of children they can submit.

The myth that China is artificially limiting the number of adoption taking place is without any evidence, and prevents adoptive families from having an accurate idea of the true state of affairs in China. The idea defies logic, experience and evidence. Those who promote it are doing the adoption community a grave disservice, and adoptive families would do well to demand specific reasons (not vague generalities) why the agency or blogger continues to push this idea in the face of overwhelming evidence and testimony to the contrary.

Using the Web to Find Birth Families

The exciting story of a Chinese father's reunion with his kidnapped son, accomplished through various social media inside China, has adoptive families understandably excited about how they also might be able to leverage internet databases, etc. in their own search for the birth families of their children.

It seems, from a perusal of many birth parent search groups, that most adoptive families are still working under the assumption that the orphanages have been forthright in presenting information, and continue to believe that abandonments are the usual means by which children come into the orphanages. Such an assumption, if in fact untrue, will cause the adoptive families to utilize means of investigation that will almost always lead to failure. For example, if one assumes that a birth family left a child at the gate of the orphanage, one might also expect that the birth family might be curious enough to add their names to a database. This would be a natural assumption to make if one assumes a child was in fact abandoned as we are so often told.

But the growing realization is that such true abandonments are, in fact, very rare. It is important for adoptive families, when they are starting a search, to realize that everything they know about their child may, in fact, be a fiction. This statement will offend some adoptive families, who have invested their adoption story with emotional baggage that in large part makes it difficult for them to search with an open mind. They fiercely seek to cling to the "China myth", the idea that their child was wanted, even loved, and that cruel circumstances prevented the birth family from keeping their child. While this may sometimes be true, adoptive families must realize that the probability is that their child was relinquished for other reasons, including for money, promises, through deception, and a myriad other reasons. It is important for adoptive families to start a search realizing that any of these reasons may play a role in their child's history. To emotionally refuse to accept any one of these possibilities will impose artificial limitations, which will almost always significantly reduce the probabilities of success.

It is probable that between 2000 and the present, in excess of 80% of the healthy infant children adopted came into the orphanages through incentive programs. An adoptive family may scoff at this figure, refuse to accept or believe it, and continue their search assuming that their child was truly found abandoned. That is certainly their right, but they should realize that by such thinking their search will, in most instances, be doomed to fail. They will employ means of searching that are inefficient, will not adequately target the birth family of their child. These families will "go through the hoops" of a search, not realizing, or perhaps in fact hoping, that the search will not be successful.

If one allows for the possibility that a child was trafficked into an orphanage, one can readily see how ineffective certain search methods such as databases, market fliers, and other "top-down, shotgun" approaches would be. One of the peculiar aspects of most stories dealing with trafficked children inside China is that even with substantial and sustained publicity, the birth families for the children retrieved from trafficking rings rarely come forward. Certainly most adoptive families would feel that having their child on TV all across China would be an effective way to locate a birth family, yet time and time again it has been shown to be very ineffective. Why? Because the children captured in trafficking rings were almost always willingly sold by the birth families to traffickers, and they have little interest in coming forward and reclaiming that child.

The idea that instituting a database that can be used to "match" with searching birth families is, from the outset, fatally flawed for this simple reason. Most birth families will not be interested in coming forward. This reluctance will be partially emotional, partially legal, and partially out of ignorance. Many of the birth families that we have located had no idea that their child even ended up in an orphanage, but were told the child was being adopted locally. Thus, even if a birth family had an interest in reuniting, many would not suspect that their child ended up in a foreign family.

If one assumes that a child was truly abandoned, one would expect that the birth and finding information would be as accurate as possible, and that this information would allow a birth family to "search" a database and find their child. But evidence shows that this assumption is often misplaced. One adoptive father of a child from the Qichun orphanage in Hubei recounted a conversation where the orphanage director “admitted to us that this orphanage deliberately changed the date of birth, so that no family could later come back (though none ever did so) to claim a child that they claimed was born on a particular date: no such child would ever be recorded in the orphanage registry.” On a research trip we made to a Jiangxi orphanage, the foster family caring for the child had the hospital birth record giving the birth date of the child as three days earlier than the "official" birth date, even though the orphanage had provided the foster mother with the hospital record. Thus, inaccurate biographical information would prevent, even if the birth family and the adoptive family both accessed the same database, a match from being made.

Adoptive families understandably hope for a simple method to locate birth families -- a DNA or other database that will allow them to put in their child's information, push a button, and out would come the birth family information. Certainly if such a service existed that was open and free to use, there would be little to lose by participating. But in reality, given the "complexities" surrounding most children adopted from China, such a program will result in failure in nearly every case. Technological barriers inside China, birth family participation rates, information accuracy, and many other reasons will prevent successful matches except in rare and very specific instances (kidnapping, Family Planning confiscations, etc.)

Is there a magic panacea for finding a birth family? No. It takes hard work. It takes an open mind willing to follow the trail wherever it goes. It takes sleuthing skills, determination, and an ability to accept information that runs contrary to one's preconception. Adoptive families unwilling to put in that kind of energy will largely fail. Hiring "investigators" unfamiliar with the situation in a given orphanage will meet with failure in most instances if the methods employed do not match the circumstances. Posting fliers in a market belonging to a trafficking orphanage will produce few results. Adding information to a database requires a 1 in a thousand stroke of luck. These avenues can be employed as a last, "hail Mary" attempt at finding birth families, but there are many more targeted approaches that should be employed first. Generally, the most success will come from a "bottoms up" approach -- quiet, discreet, focused attention to an individual child's birth family. Other methods can be used, but they will almost always meet with failure, and represent a poor use of limited funds and energy.

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Families wanting to gain a deeper understanding of their child's orphanage and abandonment circumstances should seriously consider purchasing our "Birth Parent Search Analysis". Available for under $50, this report outlines the patterns in a given orphanage, and how those patterns would impact a search for birth parents. We believe that conducting even a basic search without having as much information as possible can seriously undermine your efforts.