April's China Update

We've been hit with an estimated increase by another month. Current timeline is now 37 months from Log-In to Match, and there were only 9 children matched this month. That still puts us a solid year away from being matched and 12-14 months until we travel. I just hope we don't have to travel during the summer. I hear the heat and humidity there is unbearable in the summertime.

This came from our adoption agency's website. Thought I'd share it with everyone. I feel like there's always an excuse for the lack of matches, but it is another explanation we are hearing regarding the reason for continued delays.

Starting Today, No Unregistered Private or Transferred Adoption Allowed
China Legal Daily, April 10, 2009

"Beginning April 1, 2009, all abandoned children discovered by private citizens must be reported to local public security agencies. If birth parents or other legal guardians are unable to be located, the public security agencies must transfer the child to a local social welfare institute. No private citizen is permitted to keep a child themselves or transfer the child to other unauthorized persons without proper registration with local authorities," stated a Ministry of Civil Affairs spokesperson during an interview with the China Legal Daily on March 31, 2009.

China's Adoption Law was first approved by the 7 th National Congress on December 29, 1991, and was revised on November 4, 1998, by the 9 th National Congress at its 5 th session. The revised adoption law went into effect on April 1, 1999.

"Although our citizens' understanding about the law and therefore legal registration of private adoption has since increased," according to the same spokesperson, "unregistered private adoption is still a major problem. Such unregistered adoption without establishing a proper legal relationship has resulted in irresolvable legal obstacles to the adoptee's legal residency, education, and inheritance, etc."

Therefore, in September last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Health, and the Family Planning Commission jointly published the "Notice on Resolving the Issues of Private Adoption," to be effective April 1, 2009.

(Translator's footnote: The CCAA believes that the rise of unregistered private adoption in China in recent years is one of many contributors to the decline of the orphanage population. A citizen who finds an abandoned child may choose not to report the child, desiring to keep the child themselves or give the child to another, out of financial and confidentiality concerns. The CCAA pushed through this Notice last year for the purposes of protecting abandoned children's legal right, as well as for a desire to see more abandoned children reported to orphanages for eventual legal adoption.)