Chinese Reach Out To Orphans

Already, the survivors of China's earthquake are putting together their own makeshift families. In the Jiuzhou Stadium in Chengdu, where thousands are being housed, volunteer Melody Zhang says she met a 'nice looking' one made up of a mother, a father, a grandfather and two children -- from four different families.

'They just naturally took care of each other,' says Ms. Zhang, the associate director of adoption agency Children's Hope International, who has been delivering supplies in Sichuan province.

As the focus of the earthquake-relief effort in Sichuan turns to aiding survivors, China is witnessing an outpouring of requests by other Chinese to adopt children orphaned by the disaster. The provincial Sichuan Internal Affairs Bureau has set up an adoption hot line and says it has received hundreds of inquiries from elsewhere in the country. So many people were trying to call it on Friday that the hot line almost always gave a busy signal.

The government tried to calm some of the eagerness on Friday by announcing on state-run news media that it would start making permanent arrangements for orphaned children only once reconstruction begins. 'Everything will be done strictly in accordance with the adoption law,' said a spokeswoman for the State Internal Affairs Bureau who identified herself as Ms. Gan.

The government hasn't yet offered any estimates of the number of children orphaned by the quake. Ms. Gan said that 'quite a few' children had been found at least temporarily without their parents but time was needed to try to find them. Inside the Jiuzhou Stadium, people post information about missing family members on a bulletin board.

The sad reality is that there may not be many orphans, officials say, because many of the estimated 50,000 dead are children. The earthquake came during school hours on a Monday and demolished many schools.

Orphans who have survived the earthquake need not only physical but also mental support, Ms. Zhang says. One 4-year-old girl she met, Shen Xiaoyu, had managed to climb out of the rubble of her day-care center on her own, but she refused to speak to anybody at the Mianyang Central Hospital. Ms. Zhang says her colleagues are working on a program to train volunteers in counseling children for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Authorities aren't showing any signs that they will make it easier for foreign families to adopt the children, after implementing tough new adoption rules last year. China's amended rules bar foreigners who are single, obese, more than 50 years old or currently taking psychiatric medications. In the past decade, well over 50,000 Chinese children have been adopted by foreign families, many of them American, in a process that can take years.

China's rationale for the policy change was that the government couldn't meet demand from prospective foreign families. Birthrates are falling in China, and economic growth has led to fewer parents abandoning their children because of poverty.

Now, the Sichuan earthquake has brought an outpouring of aid and sympathy from inside China.

One of those potential adoptive parents is Li Chuanxi, a 45-year-old survivor of China's last giant earthquake, in his hometown of Tangshan, in 1976. 'I could not move my eyes off the TV every day, waiting for the latest information on [Monday's] Wenchuan earthquake,' he says. 'I can't help crying whenever I see the kids' miserable faces.'

He says he discussed the matter with his wife, and they want to adopt two or three children if they are allowed. It is unclear if the government would amend its 'one child per family' policy for quake orphans. 'My apartment is big enough for newcomers to the family,' he says. They have a 19-year-old daughter.

The State Internal Affairs Bureau says so far there is more demand for orphans to adopt than there is need. 'We would have no difficulty at all sending every child here to families in China,' Ms. Gan said.

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Juliet Ye

中国四川大地震的幸存者正在组建自己的临时家庭。志愿者张雯(Melody Zhang)说，在收容了数千名幸存者的成都九州体育馆，她就遇到了来自四个不同家庭的一位母亲、一位父亲、一位爷爷和两个孩子组成的“很不错”的家庭。

担任收养机构儿童希望救助基金(Children's Hope International)主任的张雯说，他们只是自然而然地彼此照顾。她一直在四川省负责发放救济品。

随着四川抗震救灾的重点逐步转向救助幸存者，中国涌现了收养此次震灾孤儿的大量请求。四川省民政局已经设立了收养热线，并表示已收到全国各地的数百个咨询电话。上周五拨打电话的人非常多，以至于热线电话几乎一直处于占线状态。

政府努力平复一些人的迫切心情，上周五通过国营新闻媒体宣布，只有在重建工作开始后才会对孤儿进行永久性的安置。国家民政部一位自称姓甘的女发言人表示，所有事宜都将严格按照收养法执行。

政府部门尚未提供地震造成的孤儿人数大概有多少。甘女士说，有很多孩子至少暂时没有父母认领，寻找他们的父母还需要时间。在九州体育馆，人们在公告栏里张贴了很多信息，寻找失去联系的家人。

官员们表示，一个令人感到悲哀的现实是，孤儿数量可能不会很多，因为在估计的5万名死难者中许多都是儿童。上周一的地震正发生在学校上课时，许多学校在地震中倒塌。

张雯说，从地震中幸存下来的孤儿不但需要身体方面的治疗，也需要心理方面的支持。她曾遇到一个名叫申小玉的4岁女孩，地震后这个女孩自己从幼儿园的废墟中爬了出来，但在绵阳市中心医院她却一言不发。张雯称，她的同事正在培训志愿者，为身患创伤后压力症的儿童提供心理指导。

在去年对外国家庭收养中国儿童实行了更为严格的规定后，有关部门尚未表现出放松这一限制的迹象。中国已经修改了相关规定，禁止单身、肥胖、50岁以上和目前服用精神药物的外国人收养中国儿童。在过去的10年里，共有5万多名中国儿童被美国为主的外国家庭收养，而完成整个过程需要数年的时间。

中国修改这一政策的出发点是，政府无法满足潜在外国家庭的需求。中国的出生率一直在下降，经济增长使因贫穷而遗弃孩子的家庭减少。

如今，四川地震让中国人提供救助的热情和同情心爆发了出来。

45岁的李传喜（音）就是希望收养孤儿的人之一。他是1976年唐山大地震的幸存者。他说，我每天都在盯着电视，等待汶川地震的最新消息。每当看到孩子们可怜的脸时，我都忍不住会哭。

他说他同妻子讨论了这件事，如果能得到允许，他们希望能收养两到三个孩子。目前还不清楚政府是否会为地震孤儿修改“一对夫妻一个孩”的政策。李传喜说，我的房子很宽敞，足以容纳新的家庭成员。他们还有一个19岁的女儿。

国家民政部表示，到目前为止要求收养孤儿的人数已经超过了实际需求数。甘女士说，中国的家庭已经足以收养所有孤儿，在这点上没有任何困难。