China Adoptions
(Hague)
China has been facilitating adoptions to foreign applicants for over 10 years. They receive approximately 600-800 applications per month from families worldwide. Children are in orphanages for many reasons. Due to poverty of the birth families, or China's one child policy, many children are unable to be raised by their birth families and are relinquished to the child welfare system, often by abandonment.
Orphanage Care: All children available for adoption in China are under the jurisdiction of a particular orphanage director, who reports to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs). Some directors arrange private foster care for children, but most children are cared for in orphanage institutions. These range from very good to fair in quality and number of caregivers per child. A family does not have a choice regarding which orphanage a child comes from. Sometimes they can request a particular province of China for the child to come from, but must accept that the final decision lies with the CCAA in child matches.
Dossier Preparation: CAFAC prepares all dossiers after the family has gathered the required documentation for the country. Dossiers require notarization and authentication by Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy. All dossiers are submitted to the China Center for Adoption Affairs; CCAA.
Parent requirements: Applications are welcomed from married couples of at least two years, or married couples with no more than 2 divorces, and if remarried, married for 5 years. Single parents are not accepted. Family income minimum is $10,000 USD per person in the household and minimum net worth of $80,000 USD. Each parent must have a minimum high school diploma, and at least one parent employed full time. Adoptive applicants must have fewer than five children already in their home. All applicants must be at least 30 years of age to a maximum of 50 years of age, have no health issues and a body mass index of less than 40. Neither parent can have a criminal record.
Children: Many of the children available for adoption are girls- but there are boys as well and families need to be prepared to accept a child of either gender.
All are of Asian heritage, and range in ages from 9 months old to 3 years old at the time of proposal. All are tested for HIV, Hep B, and Syphilis. There are waiting lists of children that are registered with the China’s Center of Adoption Affairs with healthy children under three years of age. Child proposals come with as much information as is known about the child, medical examination results, laboratory findings, and photos. The family has 30 days to consider a proposal and then must reply to the CCAA. For more information on China’s Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) please visit their website: www.china-ccaa.org
Waiting Time: Currently families are waiting a minimum of 4 years for proposal and then traveling to the country 8-12 weeks later. Families ap0plying to the program should expect a minimum of a 5-6 year wait for a referral.
Travel: Travel to the country is compulsory. At least one adoptive parent must be present for the adoption ceremony and finalization process. Stay in the country is usually 14-21 days in length. All travel, tours and adoption processing are assisted by CAFAC's Chinese facilitators, China Oriental Dream Travel Service. Families have someone with them from the moment they arrive in China, throughout the adoption process, until it is time to return home. These services are excellent. The adoption is finalized while in the country.
Cost: Couples report that the costs for the complete adoption process range from $30,000-$35,000 CAD depending on exchange rate, price of plane tickets, length of stay in China and the province in which they reside in Canada.
Immigration: The Canadian High Commission that manages the Immigration files is located in Beijing, China.
The Facilitator that CAFAC works with is China Oriental Dream Travel Service and they can be found at: http://www.hereischina.com/