I am scared but dont tell Darren

Just got some news of the China Rumour Queen site, where all sorts of goss is posted about the China adoption program. There has been lots of talk about China decreasing and query closing it's program as the stats below show.
U.S. adoptions from China
2004 7,044
2005 7,906
2006 6,520
This of course is causing panick (in me to) in alot of people.
The info below came from a American adoption agency explaining the decrease in the availability of Chinese children



November 8th, 2007


Abandonment is down. Farmers and low income city residents who have one female child get nationwide medical and retirement insurance. This is part of a drive to try to balance the female population.

Some orphanages still have many children. The agency reporting seems to think that in some cases this is because the orphanage directors saw other orphanage directors face severe punishment in the Hunan scandal.

Some orphanage directors do keep kids just to keep the orphanage open, or to keep receiving government funding. But some orphanage directors are acting in the best interest of the children in their care and are working to place all of the children that they can place.

The Civil Affairs Ministry began requiring police reports documetning a child’s abandonment status and this has caused more work for the SWI’s and the local police departments.

Domestic adoption is up. The average “donation” paid for a domestic adoption is close to $6,000. Plus the costs to prepare paperwork are not as expensive. (I’m not sure this is the case in all provinces, as I’m aware of an orphanage where the total costs to adopt domestically are around 2500 yuan which is around $330. Perhaps the higher fee involves those who go through the CCAA instead of going straight to the orphanage? I’m sure that $6,000 is there in some cases or the agency would not have reported it. It really bothers me that there seems to be this “competition” between domestic and IA though. If domestic adoption can handle the orphan population then there should not be IA. If domestic can not, then there should be IA. And cost should not come into play. From what I’ve been told, domestic adoption is indeed up, but not in enough numbers come close to emptying the orphanages, so IA is still needed. Both should be able to co-exist without monetary competition. )

In regards to the Olympics, the agency feels that China is of the mind to just not rock the boat about anything until the Olympics are over. Their priority is to finish the Olympics with no problems cropping up. They are not going to try to force an SWI to send files now because it’s safer to do nothing and not risk drawing negative attention to the program. (

The agency feels that the CCAA does care about the wait, but they are not as powerful as we think they are. They are at the mercy of the provinces and orphanages right now, they get whatever is sent to them and cannot demand more.

The CCAA was created in 1996 with a workload of 3,000 placements a year. China wanted to send less babies than South Korea and Russia. In 1997 the CCAA placed more than South Korea and there were discussions about it. China became proud that families liked their children, and the number was raised to more than 10,000.

China is the only country who places mostly abandoned children. Other countries place children with known birth parents or extended families. As China develops, their IA program may evolve into a system similar to that of other countries. This will likely take a while, but there is a good chance that it will happen.

Families who do not mind waiting will get a referral. The wait will be four years, worst case scenario. The agency is clear that they trust these statements.

Icks