China stops foreign adoptions of its children after decades

Bangkok Post Group

China will no longer send its children overseas for adoption, the government said on Thursday (September 6), overturning a more than three-decade rule that was rooted in its once strict one-child policy. - REUTERS

Transcript

00:00China says it will no longer send children overseas for adoption, overturning a more

00:06than three-decade rule that was rooted in its once-strict one-child policy.

00:14Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Thursday the change was meant to be, quote,

00:19in line with international trends. She added that foreign relatives of Chinese children

00:24or stepchildren could still adopt in some situations.

00:28It was not immediately clear what would happen to the families who are already in the adoption

00:33process.

00:35China implemented a rigorous one-child policy from 1979 to 2015 to help bring down its population

00:42and opened the doors to international adoption in 1992.

00:47Families around the world have adopted more than 160,000 Chinese children, around 82,000

00:54of them mostly girls, were adopted in the U.S., according to China's Children International.

01:00When Chinese families could only have one child, many opted to keep male children, who

01:05were traditionally expected to be their family's main caregivers.

01:09China now has one of the lowest birth rates globally and has been trying to incentivize

01:14young women to have kids.

01:16The move comes after the Netherlands in May banned its citizens from adopting children

01:21from foreign countries.

01:22And in Denmark, people will no longer be able to adopt children from abroad after the only

01:28adoption agency said it was stopping operations.

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