The Latest Bad News From China

Trying to solve the Mystery
I have had enough people independently send me information that names the American agency in question that I do believe that this agency is getting referrals well before other agencies. Just to clarify, referrals come to this agency with the normal referral batches, but for LID’s ahead of everyone else.

I believe that the European agency with the December referral was just a fluke, I do not see a reason to believe that their early referrals were part of a pattern.

There is also word of a famous person in a European country who is in China adopting right now and they had a 2006 LID. However, they are apparently adopting a four year old so I’m wondering if perhaps they chose to go the SN route and that is why they are traveling now.

I also see no reason to believe that the CCAA is giving preferential treatment to those in their 30’s or those who are childless. For those who are misreading the CCAA’s site - read a bit farther down where it says “Article 8: The adopter may adopt one child only, male or female. Orphans, disabled children or abandoned infants and children, who are raised in the social welfare institutes, and whose biological parents can not be ascertained or found, may be adopted irrespective of the restrictions that the adopter shall be childless and adopt one child only.”

As to the “no way or we’d know about it” argument, it sounds as if the agency in question tells their clients from the very beginning to not go out on the internet or in real life and tell people their LID. And they are also to be discreet about things once they get their referral and once they are home. When they get their referral they do tell their friends and family but they don’t mention their LID. It is a smallish agency so we aren’t talking about a whole lot of referrals, either. The definition of small in the FAQ is “less than 25 per month”. I’m not going to define them further than that.

And, this has already been said but I’ll repeat it - there was another agency before the slowdown who said they got referrals early (and seemed to be a month ahead of other agencies) but it came out that this was just a result of the way they manipulated LID dates and not because of any favors from the CCAA.

In other words, where I’m at right now is that I think I can set aside all of the other reports of early referrals except for the ones from this one American agency. And I am now sure that this agency is getting referrals well before other agencies. Okay, so I’m sure of it. Now what?

I try to make all of my decisions as RQ as if I were still waiting. I know some have expressed a fear that this could be a huge scandal. I don’t really see it as being a scandal. If the CCAA were to be confronted with the information my guess is that they’d just stop doing it and neither confirm nor deny that it had happened in the past. This has nothing to do with impropriety where the babies are concerned, and it’s likely no one will care except for those waiting and the other agencies who are not getting this special favor.

So, again - do we do anything with the information? Do we just acknowledge that it is happening and sit on it? Do we accept that orderly lines aren’t really part of the culture in China and that this was probably a given that it happens? Or do we ask for fairness? I could successfully argue both sides of that one.

I’ve already received a few informed opinions and expect to receive more from people who I have personally asked for their input into the matter. But I’m interested in hearing how the rest of the adoption community feels about it as well.

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