China, in an effort to control their human population, instituted a program some years back limiting the amount of children a family could have to one. Whether that is a good or bad idea is something up to independent debate, there is a more profound problem involved with it.
You see, there is no social security program in the PRC; the senior citizens of the country are cared for by their oldest son. A program that limits childbirth to one has with it the burden of limiting the ability to care for the elderly. The result of this is that many families reject their daughters, since they are unable to keep the family or care for the parents after growing up, and sending them to orphanages.
The social policy that drives this also is something open to debate, but there is something available to those who are willing. The People's Republic of China has an adoption program that will allow these otherwise unwanted girls (and some developmentally challenged boys) to be adopted by families in other parts of the world, such as here in the United States. I know a couple agencies who work with China to facilitate the process for families who either can't have children of their own, or desire to provide a home to a girl who otherwise wouldn't have one.
Should anyone have any interest in this, or wish to debate the Chinese policy, feel free to comment or you can e-mail me at sphouch@yahoo.com for more information.
3 comments:
The actual infantcide rate is also sky rocketing in China. Girls being born and killed by their parents......so sad.
Oh, Michelle, they've been drowning their baby girls for years now--it is unbearable, but believable, in light of their social policies.
Steve, we have family members adopting teen girls from Russia right now, and we used to know a family who adopted both from Russia and from China. Bless you for trying to publicize the need.
Infanticide is hardly a new problem. The Koreans, hundreds of years ago, would kill the second born of a set of twins, because they thought multiple births were the work of demons.
It's not just in Asia, though. Ancient Rome had a policy where unwanted children would be left by the side of the road. If someone came by who wanted the child, then they could take (her), and there'd be no harm done. Otherwise, the child would die from exposure or starvation.
I don't like the idea, but I also don't like the idea of millions of unwanted children growing up in a world where they're not welcome. I don't know which is better, really.
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