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Adoption a long mission

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-02 08:05

Let our enthusiasm for adopting quake orphans be based on our good sense, says an article in People's Daily. The following is an excerpt:

Although the civil affairs department kept stressing that the accurate number of orphans needs to be confirmed and the procedures of adopting them are yet to be set, people still show great enthusiasm for adopting children orphaned by the quake. Only in Beijing, by May 22, more than 8,000 residents inquired via hotlines about how to adopt orphans. By May 24, some 300 households in New York consulted authorities about the ways for adopting Chinese quake-induced orphans.

No one ever predicted that this massive earthquake would suddenly destroy so many families. Over 5,000 children lost their parents.

How can we comfort these weeping children? And how can we cure their broken hearts?

The interest in adopting quake orphans is a good evidence of our love, but experts remind us that our love must be based on our good sense since adoption involves various aspects such as law, economy and ethics. Although the Beijing municipal government will provide preferential policy treatment for households adopting quake orphans, there is much more that needs to be done.

Statistics indicate that among 4,200 orphans left behind by the Tangshan earthquake 32 years ago, 40 percent experienced puppy love, 50 percent married before the legal age, and a great many suffered from various psychological diseases. These figures are of much importance.

It is worthwhile to be concerned about the psychological health of those Wenchuan quake orphans. According to the psychological intervention team from Zhejiang province, among the injured victims and orphans surveyed in Jiangyou People's Hospital, Sichuan province, one out of three has contracted rather serious psychological symptoms.

In such conditions, if the would-be adopters only care about the satisfaction of the orphans' physical needs, while ignoring their psychological ones, they may get no positive results for their good intentions. Therefore, adopters had better be tutored by psychological doctors together with the orphans or acquire necessary psychological knowledge.

Curing these orphans' scarred souls will be more difficult than the reconstruction of their homelands. The government bodies involved must strictly check out the background of the adopters and implement long-term supervision.

At present, three schemes of resettling quake orphans have been worked out, that is, special schools, fostering by relatives and adoption by others. As experts believe, it is better to raise these quake orphans in special schools, based on the experience of the Tangshan earthquake, for the same experience of the orphans in such schools is easier to put the minds of these children in peace.

We should shoulder the responsibility of helping quake orphans. In the long run, we should lay down more detailed regulations and laws and try to plug the loopholes in the present civil affairs work.

(China Daily 06/02/2008 page4)