China ended its international adoption program. Prospective parents want Canada to intervene

The Current24:51China suddenly ends international adoptions

A Quebec man and his wife are devastated after China suddenly stopped most international adoptions, dashing their hopes of adopting a little boy they've spent years getting to know.

"We feel that we have a special connection with him," said Pierre LeMay from Quebec City.

"We receive pictures, we receive videos We were seeing him growing and learning things and doing stuff a little boy would do," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.

Lemay and his wife, Nathalie Bissonnette, married in 2015 and are now in their late 40s. They started the adoption process several years ago and were matched with a four-year-old boy in early 2020. But the pandemic stalled their application and the boy, who has special needs and a heart defect, is now eight years old.

Lemay said they were at the second-last step of their application process, awaiting authorization to travel to China and bring the boy back to Canada.

WATCH | China quietly ends international adoptions:

China quietly ends international adoptions

13 days ago

Duration 2:00

China quietly ended its international adoption program last week. The move has left families hoping to adopt in the lurch, and adoptees wondering if it will make it harder to find their birth families.

But on Sept. 5, China announced the international adoption program was ending immediately, to bring the policy "in line" with international trends. Only blood relatives will be allowed to adopt a child or stepchild from another country.

"We express our appreciation to those foreign governments and families, who wish to adopt Chinese children, for their good intention and the love and kindness they have shown," said Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson.

Lemayconfirmed the change with his adoption agency and the Quebec government. He wants the federal government to advocate to China for the completion of applications that were already in progress.

"Given our age, we don't think there's going to be another possibility," he said.

In an emailed statement to The Current, the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said it is "working closely with contacts in China to review the changes." A request for comment to the Chinese embassy in Canada did not receive a response.

Lemay is worried about the boy.

"Given his age and condition we're not sure if there is going to be a family for him," he said.

Adoptions have been steadily declining

Delia Ramsbotham, who runs a B.C. adoption agency, was surprised that China didn't allow existing applications to continue but said she wasn't surprised the program ended.

"There is a significant number of countries around the world who are no longer doing inter-country adoption or who are doing significantly fewer," said Ramsbotham, executive director of Sunrise Family Services Society, a licensed non-profit adoption agency in Vancouver.

"[That's] in part because they have developed a system internally to meet their children's needs."

China did not explain why it was ending the program, but observers speculate it could relate to a falling birth rate, the end of the one-child policy in 2015 and increased adoption within the country.

"If China has decided that it no longer needs to look externally for families for their children, then that's a success story," said Ramsbotham.

WATCH | China ends one-child policy:

China ends one-child policy

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China has ended its strict one-child policy, a change they hope will help with an ageing population and dwindling workforce.

She said adoptions from China have been steadily declining since the country joined the Hague convention on inter-country adoptions in 2006. Canada is also a signatory to the treaty, which imposes strict safeguards to ensure all adoptions are in the best interests of the child.

"Countries that have signed on to the Hague acknowledge that the best place for a child to be raised is in a family," Ramsbotham said.

"That's the priority, either keeping them within their biological family, finding a family locally, or if that can't happen, looking elsewhere for a family."

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In its statement, IRCC said 10 minors were adopted from China and granted Canadian citizenship in 2023. Five children from China were adopted up to July this year.

Ramsbotham is concerned about children whose applications were in progress. To be deemed eligible for international adoptions, Chinese officials would have been required under the Hague convention to rule out local possibilities.

She worries that this means those kids might have little chance of local adoption, and could eventually age out of state care, to an uncertain future.

Finding a connection to your culture

China's international adoption program officially began in 1992, when the country was strictly enforcing its one-child policy. More than 160,000 children, mostly girls and children with disabilities, were adopted internationally.

Nikki Rottenberg adopted her daughter, Shelley Rottenberg, from China in 1996, raising her in Dundas, Ont. Since there were very few other Asian people in their community, Nikki worked hard to expose Shelley to her culture.

"I took her to all the things that were Chinese in the area that I could, because I wanted her to get the feel of being Chinese," Nikki said.

Despite their best efforts, it was only later in life that Shelley found the connections she had been missing, througha community of other adoptees.

"There was so much that was like a common thread between all of us, things where we just understood each other," said Shelley, who is now the co-president of China's Children International, a non-profit that supports Chinese adoptees.

Jenny Heijun Wills was adopted from South Korea in the early 1980s and grew up in Kitchener, Ont. Her memoir Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related explores how adoption led to what she describes as "feelings of racial and ethnic fracture," which continue to shape her experience in the world.

She told The Current that finding and reuniting with her first family in Korea didn't immediately heal those fractures.

"I didn't have the linguistic skills, I didn't have the cultural knowledge. I was still unequipped to build and sustain those relationships," said Heijun Wills, a professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, whose new book of essays explores family and belonging.

"Adoption isn't that sort of singular act or this completed event. It's something that has lingering effects that I think has left residue on every aspect of my life," she said.

Mothers coerced into giving up babies

Last week, South Korea's government published the findings of an inquiry into accusations of malpractice in international adoptions conducted in the decades after the Second World War and Korean War. The country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that some mothers were coerced into agreeing to adoptions, and some babies were forcibly taken.

Other countries have also made changes. Denmark's only international adoption agency announced in January that it would cease operations over concerns about malpractice and fabricated documents. Norway tightened controls on the process in June.

Heijun Wills said she understands China ending its program has caused emotional distress for people in the midst of an adoption application.

But"too often," international adoption is "envisioned as a system that is focused on helping adults become parents," she said.

"Often adopted individuals and first families voices are kind of drowned out or silenced in the midst of these very emotionally fraught moments."

WATCH | Korean adoptee from B.C. reunites with long-lost family after 50 years:

Korean adoptee from B.C. reunites with long-lost family after 50 years

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After reading CBC's story on falsified orphan paperwork from South Korea, Mi Hwa Taylor began searching for the truth behind her adoption. She describes the unforgettable moment when she reunites with her two biological sisters at an airport this past December.

Ramsbotham, from the B.C. adoption agency, said it's "very important for us not to make those same mistakes" of the past, pointing to the harms inflicted on Indigenous children in the Sixties Scoop.

She said adoption agencies are now more aware of the importance of helping an internationally adopted child retain a connection to their birth culture, as well as listening to adult adoptees and learning from their experiences.

She said most agencies now prioritize finding homes for kids who need homes, rather than finding kids for parents who want kids.

"I would hate for this generation of children to miss out on that opportunity [of growing up with a family] because of what happened historically," she said.

Heijun Wills said she understands where that sentiment comes from.

"However, when systems are potentially corrupt and when industries are profiting off of the relocation without agency of children then we need to absolutely take a step back and critically think about these processes," she said.