Adopting a hard line

*sigh*
Article in today's The Australian newspaper reflecting the sad state of Australian inter-country adoption.
Adopting a Hard Line on Parents

On being an ancient mamma

Wow, and I sometimes worry about being a 'late-starter' and not beginning my family until my thirties. A 70 year old Indian woman has just given birth to a baby! Rajo and her husband had been married 50 years and felt there was a social stigma that they never had children. Eeek!


"We longed for a child all these years and now we are very happy to have one in the twilight years of our life."

Full article here.

When life gives you bad milk, make... bricks?

Remember the tainted milk issue in China? I just saw this article at China Daily which suggests the contaminated milk could be used to make bricks and concrete. This is apparently a cheaper way to dispose of it than treating it as hazardous waste.

It's scary to think that it's too toxic for landfill yet humans were consuming it. Here's hoping China implements strict quality assurance measures/standards for all food and drinks (and toys and cosmetics and clothes...)

Image by mtlin

One Child Policy to Continue

There has been speculation recently about whether China's family planning policy (commonly known as the One Child Policy) would change or continue. Earlier this month, China's Family Planning Minister announced that the policy would continue for at least another ten years.

While the policy is commonly deemed successful in curbing population growth, there have been massive social, economic, environmental, ethical and other implications and consequences as a result of this policy, directly and indirectly, including

• child abandonment, especially girls
  
• female gendercide
  
• child trafficking
  
• wife trafficking
  
• forced abortions / forced sterilisation
  
• gender imbalance
  
• 4/2/1 dependency ratio
  
• declining birth rate, hence declining population replacement rate
  
• aging population
  
• little emperor syndrome
  
• hugely disproportionate number of marriageable age males without female counterparts
  (this list is just a quick brain-dump and is by no means exhaustive)

The One Child Policy is not a blanket policy imposed on all families. In fact, the current birth rate in China sits at around 1.8 children per family (not down to 1 per family but certainly a shift from the average of 7.5 children per family in 1963). Here is some information about the policy:

• families are allowed to have two children if the first born is a girl or is disabled (resulting in second and third born females being abandoned)
  
• rural families are permitted to have two children
  
• if the mother and father are only children themselves, they are allowed two children
  
• the policy is enforced in different ways in different provinces
  
• ethnic minorities (the 55 different Chinese ethnic groups, ie. non-Han Chinese) may have two and sometimes three children
  
• breaching the policy can result in fines, withdrawal of family allowance, demotion or discharge from jobs, social rejection

I wonder what the Chinese would think of the policies of my nation's Government; we are paid to have children and encouraged to have larger families in an attempt to increase the fertility rate.

Similar/related earlier posts: The right to live, Family planning slogans, Population stuff.

A strange attraction

Two posts in two days. Try not to go into shock.

I read an article today about unknowing twins in the UK marrying each other. The twins were separated at birth and adopted to different sets of parents. They only discovered they were brother and sister after they married, at which point the marriage was annulled.

Mess mess mess mess mess.

Read the article here.

The right to live

There's an article in today's Courier Mail that states that there have been 10 million baby girls in India aborted or victims of gendercide in the past twenty years. It's heartbreaking. TEN MILLION. I don't even know how to comprehend a number that big, especially when it relates to human life.

I don't want this to be a morbid entry, but I share it because awareness and education about these issues need mainstreaming.

As most of us know, the same issues are prevalent in China... still. This presentation was shared at the 2007 UN conference on the status of women. It's focus is on the issues related to female abandonment and preference for boys in China. Some alarming facts are presented, but they need to be made known. Whacked out ratios. Steady patterns. Social insanity. And laws that mean if you abandon a baby girl you are punished, but if you kill her it's ignored.

And the wait to adopt gets longer.

Family planning slogans in China

Three posts in two days. This has to be some kind of record for me.

Those who refuse to use birth control, have a ligation and pay the extra birth fine will be severely punished' - family planning banner in Guangxi

I read an article today that China has decided to update some of its harsh family planning posters and billboards.

Some of the existing slogans on walls and billboards say things like:
'Raise fewer babies but more piggies'
'Houses toppled, cows confiscated, if abortion demand rejected'
'One more baby means one more tomb'
'Better ten graves than one extra birth' (there's a human rights book by this name)

The slogans which have been approved to replace the questionable ones include:
'The mother earth is too tired to sustain more children'
'Both boys and girls are parents' hearts'

While searching for photographs of such posters, I came across this site which shows the population policy propaganda posters over time.

I also learnt about the incredibly sad case of Jin Yani in China, who is suing family planning officials due to the ramifications of a full term forced abortion seven years ago. Ugh.

"Adoption heartbreak" article

Adoption has been making the news more than usual around here. In today's Sunday Mail there's an article about how Deborra-lee Furness and husband Hugh Jackman returned to the US to adopt their children because the Australian Government's 'anti-adoption culture' and overwhelming red tape was making it difficult for them.

The paper version (ie. not online) has another article which provides some interesting figures. In Australia in 2004/2005 there were 410 babies adopted in Australia, from 25 countries. In comparison, the US had 21, 000 during this period. Australia rates as the lowest country in the Western world for its rate of intercountry adoption.

Debora-lee has called for Prime Minister John Howard to meet with her to discuss overhauling the adoption process.

I have mixed thoughts. I agree the process here isn't easy, but I don't think it should be. There have been many improvements in recent years, and it seems much of the wait is due to country quotas and long queues once a couple is approved. I believe Australia needs more agreements with more countries, and for current quotas to be reviewed and increased.

Celebrity influence?

The Sydney Daily Herald has an article suggesting that it may be Angelina Jolie's influence that more Australians are adopting from overseas. I wonder how shallow they think adoptive parents are. "Wow, celebrities are doing it, let's do it too! Yeah!"

Speaking of Angelina, looks like she's lining up for adoption number 4 - a baby girl from Chad. Woah!

Population stuff

This article (and a similar one here) states that based on the current gender imbalance in China's birth rates, by 2020 there will be 30 million more men in China than women.

Heck, the entire population of Australia is only 20 million.

It also looks as though the forthcoming Year of the Pig could spark a baby boom in China.

'Not to deter foreign adopters'

The CCAA has spoken out about the new regulations and how they have been misinterpreted by foreign media in an article today. The article appears in Xinhua, the official press agency of the Chinese govt, reporting directly to the Party's Propaganda Dept.

I like this line - 'The new rules will help shorten waiting times for qualified foreigners and speed up the process for children...' Yee-haw! Now we just gotta hold tight and see how loooong we have to wait for the wait time to shorten!

(not that the wait times affect us personally yet because we're a fair while off being DTC/LID, but we're following along with a whole bunch of cool people in the big long queue for referrals)

I thought the last line of the article was a bit interesting too.