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Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 23, No. 12, pp. 971-974, 2001 Copyright 8 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved

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Book Reviews

The Lost Daughters of China by Karin Evans New York: Tartcher/Pumam, Division of Penguin Putnam, 2000

Inter-country adoption is an increasingly important social policy issue as thousands of children from other coun&es are adopted by American parents. The largest numbers are being adopted from China and Russia with smaller numbers from other countries, including Korea, Eastern European countries and Latin America. China represents a unique situation in that almost all of the adopted children are female so that situation deserves special considera- tion. Karin Evans’ book provides an excellent discussion of the complexities of adoption generally and of intercountry, transracial adoption in particular.

The book opens with a moving letter from Amchee Min who presents herself as an aunt to all Chinese girls adopted in the United States. This letter places the entire book in the social/gender context of adoption of Chinese females today. Women continue to have lower status in China and are not valued by many families. This situation often results in their being abandoned when a family faces a crisis. Females grow up in orphanages if they are lucky, and if they are even luckier they are adopted by a family from another country.

Karin Evans, the author, is the adoptive mother of a Chinese female. She reports the experiences of her husband and herself in deciding to adopt a Chi- nese child, all of the bureaucratic procedures that had to be mastered before they were approved for adoption and flew to China. Her careful description provides an excellent guide for anyone considering such an adoption today. This is of great value because it is very probable that the majority of U.S. adoptive parents do not consider all of the implications of this act. She pro- vides a vivid description of southeast China, especially of the city of Guang- zhou and its people. This is the area in which her daughter was found and where she and her husband spent two weeks doing all of the necessary tasks

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that were essential to complete the adoption. A local agency handled the de- tails for the group of U.S. parents there to pick up their daughters and com- plete the adoptions. There is also the Chinese government with its require- ments to be met and finally the U.S. government that required a detailed physical examination and immunizations before a visa was issued. These pro- cedures occur in the majority of transnational adoptions today, although local agency services are often less than occurred in Evans’ report. She very sensi- tively describes the joy of the group of parents she came with when they re- ceived their children. One gains insight into the happiness of these parents who have wanted children for a long time.

This book differs substantially from most about transnational and transra- cial adoption in that Evans places her report within the Chinese context rather than that of the West. There is a long and carefully documented discussion about the status of women in China historically and in the contemporary pe- riod. Much of her study focuses on the period after World War II under Mao Zedong when the government became concerned about population growth, as well as about the consequences of the late 1960s when millions died as a re- sult of drought and famine. The government decided to institute the “one- child per couple” policy and did so with substantial coercion. Some authors today argue that China had been lowering its fertility levels for many years, and they question whether the policy was needed. Nonetheless, the govem- ment implemented the policy, which was particularly painful for women in the way it was introduced. China was a society with a deep-rooted and de- structive form of patriarchy where the preferences for male children were unequivocal. Even in the rearing of male and female children, females were less well fed and clothed and had fewer opportunities for education. Mao did implement several policies to better the status of women, but they did not succeed. The ingrained negative attitudes about females were just too strong. To illustrate, Evans reports a Chinese nursery rhyme that she had read before considering reading it to her daughter:

We keep a dog to guard the house A pig will make a feast or two We keep a cat to catch a mouse But what is the use of a girl like you (97)

Implementation of the one-child policy required that women have a “birth permission paper” and if they married the couple had to sign an agreement to

Book Reviews 973

obtain a Birth Planning Honor Card. When they did not agree, they could be subject of fines, job and benefit loss and incarceration. Enforcement did vary among regions of China, but nowhere was it ignored. Greater leniency occurred in the rural areas and for the minorities whose population was declining anyway. Many mothers who bore daughters were forced from their homes and girls were increasingly abandoned, a practice legal in China. In communities where the policy was harshly enforced, pregnant women who violated the policy were forced to have abortions, even very late term abortions.

What has been the result of the “one child” policy and what is the linkage to the fact that 99% of the Chinese children available for transnational adop- tion are females? Overall there has been a decline in fertility levels, but other unintended results have occurred. Ninety-seven percent of aborted fetuses are female (Human Rights Watch, 1996). In 1996, the Chinese government re- ported that there were 31 million more adult males than females (Hartman, 1995; Kristof and WuDunn, 1993 and 1995). Some of the explanation may lie in the fact that Chinese women have the highest rate of suicide in the world.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences reports that there are 120 males to 100 females. However, in some areas of China the ratio is 170 to 100, and, in those areas it is not unusual for women to be abducted and seriously abused.

Although the Chinese government has reported that there are 160,000 missing girls (Human Rights 1996), organizations report that the number is far higher than the official report. The world appears to have largely ignored the plight of women and girls in China today. There are laws that supposedly protect the rights of women (Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women, 1992). Lastly, abandonment is socially accepted so it is little wonder that millions of girls have been abandoned and some have ended up in orphanages available for adoption.

The book’s last section addresses many facets of transracial and transna- tional adoption as well as adoption generally. This issue is increasingly rec- ognized by adult adoptees from Korea and several other countries. They wish to learn about their birth parents, why they were given up for adoption, and how they can learn to live with awareness and sensitivity toward Eastern and Western cultures. It is probable that such concerns will also arise among adult adoptees from Eastern Europe and Latin America but the Korean adoptees have been particularly well organized and articulate (In Sun Park, 1998).

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From Evans’ account one gains a very different, mature and sensitive un- derstanding of the complexities of adoption that we seldom think about in the U.S. Adoptees have a life-long task of coming to terms with their origins and birth parents’ actions. Consider the difference between being told “we chose you because we really wanted you” versus just being born on a certain day to known parents. The majority of Chinese adoptees were abandoned in public places whereas in the U.S. we have social agencies that mothers can go to discuss giving up their children and develop an adoption plan. Neither ap- proach may be desirable from the adoptees’ point of view. The growth in “open adoptions” recognizes the need of parents and adopted children for greater understanding of each other. The little girl adopted by the Evans has loving parents who will join with her in this exploration. The use of Chinese poetry throughout the book helps one gain an understanding of the values that underpin social policy.

Rosemary C. Sarri University of Michigan

References

Hartman, B. (1995). Rights and wrongs: The globalpolitics ofpopulation control, Boston: South End Press.

Human Rights Watch Asia (1996).Caught between tradition and the state. Report Human Rights Watch China (1996). Chinese orphanages. Washington: Human

Rights Watch. Kristof, N. and WuDunn, S. (1993) Caught between tradition and the state:

violations of the rights of Chinese women in China Wakes. Park, In Sun (1998). People who search. Seoul, Korea: Hana Medical Publishing.