Only one orphan has been adopted in the four months since a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province left some 90,000 people dead or missing, government officials and state media said yesterday.
The 10-year-old boy is from Mianzhu, said a staffer from Sichuan’s Civil Affairs Office who gave only his surname, Zhao.
The orphan was identified Zhang Anyun, a student from the Hanwang Central Primary School, the China Daily said. He was adopted by a couple in the provincial capital of Chengdu.
Both of Zhang’s parents were killed when their apartment collapsed, the report said. His grandparents are alive, but both are more than 80 years old and cannot afford to support him, it said.
The paper said that a total of 532 children lost their parents in the May 12 quake that killed nearly 70,000 people and left another 18,000 missing, but most of them have been taken in by family members or guardians.
The government said last month that only 88 children were eligible for adoption because they had no relatives who could be located or could care for them, the paper said. Of the 88 children, 28 are between five and 10, while 54 are between 10 and 14, the paper said.
One reason for the slow response in finding adoptive homes is that couples are hesitating over adopting handicapped children, the China Daily said, citing sources from the provincial civil affairs department.
Jiang Tao, head of the division in charge of adoption at the provincial civil affairs office, was quoted as saying that adoptive parents preferred children who are under six and are not handicapped. However, many of the quake orphans sustained physical or other injuries during the quake that are permanent handicaps, his office said.
The Civil Affairs Ministry said earlier that people nationwide had shown a huge interest in adopting quake orphans, with 10,000 families registering for adoption in one province alone. The ministry said at the time that priority would be given to parents who had lost children in the quake.
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