Posted on 02/13/2005 5:52:52 PM PST by srm913
Chinese parents giving away unwanted daughters
YULIN (GUANGXI) - TINY newborn infants bundled in layers of blankets sleep next to their mothers while fathers and grandmothers sit quietly by the bedside, but this is no ordinary maternity ward.
'Do you want to take the baby home?' one baby girl's grandma asks a visitor at Fumian Hospital, whispering so the nurses would not hear. The infant's parents do not protest and instead eagerly await a reply.
Incidents such as this in farming communities of Yulin city, in southern China's Guangxi region, underline a problem rarely discussed by the government or media - that parents are among the chief offenders for the country's widespread trade in babies.
Despite years of government efforts to end traditional preferences for boys, Chinese farmers still prefer sons to carry on the family line, do tough work and care for elderly parents.
So farmers, limited by China's one-child policy, give away their daughters so they can try again for a boy, experts say.
While Chinese media routinely report cases of trafficking in kidnapped children, a more prominent phenomenon is the giving away of babies by parents.
Parents send word out, usually through midwives, to find people willing to take their unwanted daughters.
International experts say child trafficking is getting worse despite some people's hopes that China's economic development might change the situation.
Official figures show about 1,000 children are trafficked each year, but that often does not include babies given away by their parents, experts say.
In 2003, police caught 20 people transporting 28 unwanted baby girls from Yulin stuffed in bags on a long-distance bus. The babies were drugged to keep them from crying. One girl died.
While traffickers in the Yulin case were executed, and doctors and midwives sentenced to prison, there is hardly any focus on the parents and why they gave up their children.
Some experts say it is because the government is sensitive to any suggestion that its two-decades-old one-child policy is causing baby-selling.
Mr Chen Zhineng, a village official in Yulin, says: 'What parents are most concerned about is getting rid of the girl so they can have a son. In the countryside, that is the reality.' \-- AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Frankly, I'd rather those babies go to families who want them than be in danger of being killed by their own families. Infanticide is still being practiced in China, especially toward girls. With the one-child policy, boy children are much more important to families because he can take care of his parents in their old age.
Many of these bbabies have been adopted here in the US----it is a big business.
I know a couple of these lucky little girls.
China will join Europe in Demographics.
It's an amazing irony that these little girls born under the most desperate of circumstances end up with some of the wealthiest families in the US.
It takes at least $10,000 to adopt a Chinese infant, plus a lot of bureaucratic red tape. These babies are lucky indeed.
Boys taking care of their parents seems such a foreign concept in our culture.....
In China the live birth ratio of boys to girls is now 133:100 or 3 girls to every 4 boys. Just who are these boys going to marry to carry on the family name? It seems that the Chinese are being extremely short sighted about this.
It beats killing them.
Not as much as you might think... and parents definatey don't have to worry about birth-mothers ever showing up.
Another problem you don't hear much about, is after all these years of one child (normally male), there are far more men than women and the the men can't find wives. Just what we need, a country with a billion frustrated men.
Can they bring them to USA? there are so MANY couples who are childless. I have three kids but would happily take three of these angels. And my sister who was unable to have a baby would probably take three or four....
The one child policy is phasing out for exactly that reason.
I know a couple who adopted a Chinese girl last year. Yes, the red tape is horrendous, criminal background check, financial statements, social worker visits. etc. These girls are indeed lucky to be adopted by loving American adoptive parents when their real parents discard them like trash.
Daughters take care of the parents in USA>
Would you like me to send you links?
I'm in Ireland and friends of mine just adopted a beautiful year old baby girl from China.
Who says they're going to loving homes?
The way the child sex industry is, I wouldn't wager 1000-1 to that that's where they end up.
The rules for international adoption are very exclusionary. You may not have natural children of your own and you must be under 35.
Life is cheap in this world...
But in the U.S. we abort them.... we're WORSE...
My wife and I have been unable to have one of our own and will adopt as soon as we can. I'd love to have a baby girl to spoil rotten. ;-)
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