China: Country and Program Overview
The China Adoption Program is a stable, established program that has successfully brought thousands of children into adoptive families. In 2006 Americans adopted 6,493 children from China, the largest number of any country from which international adoption is possible. Chinese adoption is recognized for its consistency and simplicity. The entire process of the adoption is regulated by the Chinese government and is clearly outlined, including costs and travel time.
Children Available
The children, primarily girls, range from 8 months to 13 years of age. The children are considered fairly healthy. Girls are more often available than boys, but boys are sometimes available. Applicant families can specify a range of ages and health conditions they desire. Children with moderate to significant special needs (both girls and boys) are also available and very much in need of families. There is very little family background information or medical history information available about most of the children. They were generally abandoned and their biological families were not able to be located. There are few twins or sibling groups available. All children, including those without known medical concerns, may have various degrees of malnutrition and developmental delays. . Most reside in orphanages, but the use of foster care is rapidly increasing.
On May 1, 2007, new adoption requirements and regulations went into effect. The following requirements reflect these new regulations.
Parent Requirements
The new regulations are listed below, in the exact language of the CCAA:
1. The adopters are a couple of one male and one female with a stable marital relationship. In case that both the husband and wife do not have any ex-marriage, the length of marriage has to reach two years. In case that either the husband or wife has ex-marriages (not more than 2), the length of the current marriage has to reach 5 years.
2. Both the husband and wife have reached the age of 30 years and are under 50. For adoption of special needs child, both of them should have reached the age of 30 and are under 55.
3. Both the husband and wife are fully healthy physically and mentally, and
do not have the following conditions:
- AIDS
- mental handicap
- infectious disease within infective stage
- binocular blind or binocular parallax or monocular blind and with no ocular prosthesis
- binaural hearing loss or language function loss - adoption of special needs children who have identical conditions will be exempt from this limitation
- afunction or dysfunction of limbs or trunk caused by impairment, incompleteness, numbness or deformation; severe facial deformation
- severe diseases which requires long term treatment and which affect life expectancy, like malignant tumor, lupus erythematosus, nephrosis, epilepsy, and etc.
- post-surgery of major organs transplantation, not yet 10 years
- schizophrenia
- medication for severe mental disorders, like depression, mania, or anxiety neurosis, and etc., stopped not more than 2 years
- BMI equal to or greater than 40
4. Either the husband or wife holds a stable occupation. The family annual income reaches $10,000 for each family member, including the prospective adoptee and the family net assets value should reach $80,000. The family annual income does not include welfare income, like relief fund, pension, unemployment insurance, or government subsidy, and etc.
5. Both the husband and wife have received education of or above the level of senior high school, or vocational skills training of the same level.
6. The number of children in family under the age of 18 years does not reach 5, and the youngest one should have reached the age of 1 year. Adoption of special needs children will be exempt from the limitation of "the number of children in family under the age of 18 years does not reach 5".
7. Both the husband and wife have never come under any criminal sanction. And they behave honorably with good moral characters, and abide by regulations and laws. Both of them do not accord with the following situations:
- have a history of domestic violence, sex abuse, abandonment or abuse of children (even if they are not consequently arrested)
- have a history of taking narcotics like opium, morphine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and etc., and medication for mental diseases, which are able to arouse addiction among human beings
- have a history of alcohol abuse and have given up drinking not more than 10 years ago
Adoption application will be given consideration on a case by case basis when either the husband or the wife has less than 3 criminal records of slight severity with no severe outcomes, and the time for correction of wrong has reached 10 years, or has less than 5 records of traffic law violation with no severe outcomes.
8. The adopters are able to have a correct cognition of adoption, and expect to provide a warm family for the orphaned children (or children with handicap and disability) via adoption and to meet the needs of the children adopted for the sake of a good development of them. They have a correct cognition of inter country adoption as well, and are fully mentally-prepared for the potential risks within inter-country adoption and for the situations of children adopted as potential diseases, developmental delay, post-placement maladjustment, and etc.
9. The adopters make in the adoption application letter clear promises of being able to accept post-placement follow-ups and offer post-placement reports as required.
10.The fixed number of year or age that appears in this letter shall be dated from the day when the adoption application documents are logged in at the CCAA.
Travel
At least one parent must travel to China to complete the adoption. Travel time is most often 10-14 days. Parents usually travel 6-8weeks after receiving their referral from China.
Timelines
After the family's documents are registered in China, it takes approximately 36 months for the CCAA to match the family with a child. Currently the wait to referral is approximately 36 months, although this fluctuates. Approximately six to ten weeks after receiving a referral, the family travels to China to meet the child and complete the adoption. The CCAA has advises that the wait time for families of Chinese heritage may be shorter. Please keep in mind that although adoption agencies publish different wait times, all families adopting children from China, regardless of agency, will experience the same wait.
Fees
Approximate total cost for an adoption from China is $16,000-$23,000. These fees include the home study, travel, stay in country, agency fees, foreign program costs and legalization of paperwork.