The Problem
In China, many thousands of healthy baby girls are being abandoned each year, resulting in an abundance of girls waiting in orphanages. The BBC reports that for every 100 girls registered at birth, there are now 118 little boys - in other words, nearly one seventh of Chinese girl babies are going missing. What, you may ask, has led to this phenomenon?

"One Child" Policy
China is the world's largest nation with 21% of the population - well over one billion people, and growing. In 1979 the Chinese government, in an effort to control its fast growing population, introduced a policy popularly known as the "One Child Policy". This policy introduced rewards and penalties to induce couples to limit their family to one child or in some cases, two children. The population control policy normally allows for a woman to give birth to two children if she lives in the country and one child if she lives in the city. A woman who wants a baby must, by law, have a certificate giving her permission. If she becomes pregnant without such a permit and is discovered by the authorities, she can face very severe punishment.

Entrenched Chinese Traditions
This recent policy, coupled with the fact that for thousands of years, there has been a deeply entrenched Chinese tradition, which prefers sons to daughters, has led to the current situation. The preference of sons to daughters is based on both economic and cultural reasons. The son carries on the family name whereas the daughter does not. The son is able to look after his parents when they are old but the daughter is married off to another family and looks after the family of the man she marries. This is an essential issue in a country where the brunt of the responsibility to care for the aged is left to the families. The majority of the Chinese population live in the countryside and are engaged in agricultural work. Most Chinese families prefer having sons rather than daughters to help with the physical burdens.

Adoption
So, here we are. Strict government policies and socio-economic reasons and traditions have led to the abundance of abandoned baby girls. Adoption is their only hope of rescue from a childhood spent growing up in an overcrowded orphanage.

Adoptions out of China became legal in 1992. The government of China has put a lot of effort into streamlining foreign adoptions in an effort to rectify the situation. The China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) in Beijing governs adoption in China. Family applications (dossiers) to adopt in China must be approved by this organization. The organization reviews family dossiers, which include homestudies and a variety of other documents. Approval to adopt in China also involves being assigned to adopt a specific child in a specific Province of China. Foreign adoptions are never easy, but the Chinese government has made great strides in making this process go as smoothly as possible, while also attempting to maintain the best interest of the child.