China has laws against baby-buying and strict regulations to prevent children who have been purchased from entering international adoption channels. Nonetheless, the Hengyang orphanage in Hunan province, which has provided children for U.S. families, was recently caught buying babies.
Officials with the China Center of Adoption Affairs declined to comment, citing rules against speaking with foreign reporters, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs also declined to do so, because the case was still under investigation.
"Among the U.S. adoptive community, there's almost a sense of freaking out over this," said Brian Stuy, an American adoption activist who heads Research-China.Org. "Everyone adopts with the idea these are orphans needing a home. Even the hint they have families back in China, that baby-buying may be involved, is a big problem."
The amount of money Chinese orphanages receive for foreign adoptions -- about $3,000 per child -- far outpaces what they receive for a domestic match, creating a big incentive to obtain children legally or illegally and route them into foreign channels, according to a Research-China.Org essay on adoption finances.
Referring to the Hengyang orphanage case, the essay said, "Given the highly lucrative nature of the international adoption program, the question is not how did this happen, but how come it hasn't happened more often."
Stealing children was virtually unthinkable 25 years ago when communism was the prevailing ideology and neighborhood minders watched a person's every move. The headlong rush for material wealth since then has resulted in "transition problems," as social mores give way to greed, experts say.
"Morality has disappeared, and people now do anything for money," said Xia Xueluan, a sociologist at Peking University. "Child abduction is a truly ugly phenomenon, an extremely serious social problem."
In many ways, the Cheng family has a typical migrant worker's story. Cheng came to the outskirts of Xian, famous for its terracotta warriors, in 1996, and his wife, Jin Lunju, joined him a year later from an impoverished farm village. They earn $200 a month, barely enough to make ends meet, and live in a two-room apartment with no heat or toilet, wearing their coats indoors throughout the winter.
