China has announced the end of its intercountry adoption programme, a scheme that had allowed Chinese-born children to be adopted by families overseas, according to Al Jazeera.
At a daily briefing on Thursday, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China is no longer allowing foreign adoptions of the country’s children, with the only exception for blood relatives to adopt a child or a stepchild, the report noted.
Mao did not explain the decision, other than saying it was in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions.
According to The New York Times, for three decades, China sent tens of thousands of young children overseas for adoption as it enforced a strict one-child policy that forced many families to abandon their babies. Now the government will no longer allow most foreign adoptions, a move that it said was in line with global trends.
The ban, according to The New York Times, raises questions for many of the hundreds of families in the United States who were in the process of adopting children from China and had heard earlier this week from adoption agencies that China was moving to bar international adoptions. The official confirmation came in the form of a brief comment by China’s foreign ministry on Thursday.
“We are grateful for the desire and love of the governments and adoption families of relevant countries to adopt Chinese children,” said Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the ministry. She offered few details about the new policy, except to say that exceptions would be made only for foreigners adopting stepchildren and children of blood relatives in China.