China ends international adoptions after decades of sending orphaned babies to western parents

China will no longer be allowing international adoptions effective immediately, according to a recent press brief. This comes after China has spent the last three decades allowing foreigners to adopt its orphaned babies, with hundreds of thousands of babies going to parents in Western countries such as the United States and Europe.

However, the country has established a slight exemption. It will allow foreign nationals to adopt Chinese-born children only if they are direct ancestral relatives or stepchildren, as reported by The Times. Foreign parents who have already begun the adoption process will no longer be allowed to continue with the adoption.

Chinese government spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters: "In the future, except for foreign nationals coming to China to adopt children who are collateral relatives within three generations or stepchildren, China will no longer place children for adoption abroad."

International adoptions increased in China after the one-child policy was introduced in 1979, which led to the abandonment of hundreds of thousands of babies, mostly girls since boys were culturally preferred. They were often left in the street.

The United States has been the primary recipient of Chinese orphans over the last 30 years. Spanish couples also adopted thousands of Chinese babies; however, the number of such adoptions to Great Britain and other European nations was significantly lower.

While the adoption process granted orphans the opportunity for a better life, it also came with abuses.

The amounts paid by foreigners, which were not considerably high by Western standards, were considered to be a lot in poorer parts of China. This resulted in allegations of corruption and babies being "stolen to order." In the 1980s and 1990s, the domestic adoption "market" was served by a thriving trade in kidnapped babies, as per The Times.

Additionally, parents who gave birth to disabled infants and were unable to afford surgeries became aware that international charities would cover the cost of life-saving surgeries for abandoned children. As a result, parents would put their disabled children up for adoption.

Yanzhong Huang, an expert on global health systems at the US Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on X that the change to the adoption policy would negatively impact disabled Chinese children.

"The largest victims are likely children with special needs who were abandoned by their Chinese parents," he said. "Few Chinese families are willing to adopt these children. As a result, most of them will likely have to remain in orphanages for life."