February 5, 2022
Based on data gathered by CNN, there are around 60 million Chinese “missing girls” as a result of China’s one-child policy.
According to the documentary One Child Nation and a multitude of news articles, for the duration of China’s one-child policy, it wasn’t uncommon to see abandoned babies, usually girls, left in dumps or stranded along the side of the road. Some would die under horrific circumstances; others would be brought to orphanages.
Data from the U.S Department of State reveals that from 1999 to 2016 there were 78,257 international adoptions coming from China, which is more than any other country during that time frame.
I was one of them.
As someone who was brought to a Chinese orphanage shortly after birth and later adopted by Americans, when I first heard the news about the three-child policy, I was glad that it wouldn’t result in the abandonment of other girls, but I also mourned.
Selfishly, I couldn’t help asking myself, “But what about me? What about the other girls like me?”
The three-child policy, which also removes fines for any additional children, prevents the repetition of situations like mine, but it doesn’t erase the truths behind past events and the fallout.
The expansion to a three-child policy fails to remedy the existing problem of the significant lack of women, which stems from the original policy. In 1980, according to the UN World Population Prospects, China had a population of approximately one billion people and a growth rate of 1.42%, which has since dwindled to 0.34% in 2021.
Even if a bunch of baby girls are suddenly born, it doesn’t change the generational issue of not having enough women, and this gender imbalance of men outnumbering women by over thirty million people just promotes the practices of child marriages and bride-nappings.
While the original policy acted as a catalyst for appalling practices such as the forced sterilization of women, mass gendercide, and the separation of families, the Chinese government cannot erase the pre-existing damage of the one-child policy by simply removing its former limitations.
Some organizations such as Research-China work towards helping adoptees and their families gain insight into their adoption stories. If the Chinese government were willing to work with some of these groups and with DNA testing companies, there may be more progress in connecting adoptees with their pasts, which would be instrumental towards acknowledging and addressing the mistakes of the past as well as a valuable healing tool for adoptees.
Admittedly and understandably, some adoptees are averse to the idea of reunification with their biological families; for many years, I had the mindset, “Why would I want to meet the people who abandoned me?”
My thoughts on the matter have since expanded through research, having gained my own complex understanding that there are a variety of reasons for children ending up in Chinese orphanages. For instance, government officials have been known to forcibly take children from their homes and bring them to orphanages as a side effect of the one-child policy. Sometimes other family members took children shortly after birth and gave them to traffickers, so parents didn’t have a choice.
The Chinese government advertises the three-child policy as this inherently healthy and beneficial change because it will boost productivity and expand the workforce. However, the controlling measures behind it are not that different from the ones used to implement the original policy, and the expansion ignores a history of tragedy.
We can’t let this narrative be erased. We can’t let the “missing girls” truly be lost.
Additional Resources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/she-nears-death-woman-who-saved-30-babies-trash-hailed-flna962757
