Will Changing Attitudes Toward Disabilities Affect the Future of International Adoption in China?

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

25 Sep 2008 03:41 AM

My last blog featured another profile of an elite athlete who was adopted-Jessica Tatiana Long, who was adopted from a Russian orphanage at 13 months of age, and had her legs amputated below the knee when she was 18 months old. She competed last week in The Paralympic Games in Beijing.

These Games have brought changes to China, in both infrastructure and attitudes toward the disabled.

Last May I wrote a blog about Chinese people applying to adopt earthquake orphans. This also represented a big change. Traditional beliefs in many parts of China included the importance of a pure bloodline, and adoption was uncommon. But sympathy for earthquake victims may have boosted awareness of the variety of children who, for diverse reasons, are waiting for a family.

However, a news agency reported recently that many of the earthquake orphans were not being adopted in China because they have disabilities, sometimes as a result of injuries from the quake, some from before. Another belief system that has been influential in China includes the idea that a disability may be a punishment for wrongdoing in a prior life.

A large percentage of international adoptions to the U.S. are children from China. Adoption agencies in the U.S. have also implemented a number of child welfare projects benefitting Chinese orphanages and schools for the disabled.

But perhaps the athletes of the Paralympic Games will bring the most change to China. Since hosting the Paralympics is part of the package when a city bids to host the Olympic Games, the Beijing airport and bus system had to be made accessible, wheelchair ramps and crosswalk signals for the blind were installed, and rules against animals in public places were amended to allow guide dogs. Museums and even a section of the Great Wall were fitted with ramps and an elevator so that athletes and spectators would accessible tourist attractions.

Chinese with disabilities are also working at the Paralympic Games as volunteer guides or in other positions in the Olympic Village. Musicians with disabilities starred in the Opening Ceremonies. Many Chinese with disabilities attended the games as spectators, including children who had lost limbs after the earthquake last May.

One 29-year-old woman from Hunan Province who uses a wheelchair because she had polio as an infant was overjoyed to see a television shot of a person navigating their wheelchair onto a public bus in Beijing. "I'd never seen anything like that in my life," she said. (Ironically, this woman works for the province's Disabled Persons Federation.)

It remains to be seen whether the changes in views of adoption and changes in views of disability will coalesce and make adoptions of children with disabilities more common in China in the future. But as the song says, "the times, they are a-changin".

Please see this related blog:

Why "Special Needs" Applies to You, Too

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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