China's Stolen Children

I got this message through one of my online groups:

Prior to and during the upcoming Olympic games, the media will bedevoting an abundance of attention to China, and as part of this newscoverage we anticipate that some reporting will be done about situations involving China's one-child policy and the allegations that some families are being paid to give up their children, who arebeing "trafficked" through the orphanage system.

HBO has scheduled its broadcast of a documentary entitled "China'sStolen Children" for Monday, July 14. (See Web link provided below for more information about this film.)

Other stories about child trafficking in China andelsewhere have been released recently in Europe, with increasing frequency during the last few months. Articles about trafficking touch on topics that include the sale of babies for adoption and older children into factory labor and/or prostitution.

For our children to hear or see such stories -- or to be told about them by friends who have seen them -- can cause them pain and possibly result in confusion about their own circumstances. Adopted children have a range of thoughts about their origins and their natural tendency to wonder about their lives before they joined our families. This means that stories about trafficking will almost certainly have an impact on them that we, as their parents, need to understand what is prompting these stories to be reported and be able to respond to our children's questions and concerns in appropriate ways.

To prepare ourselves for this possibility, we are passing along to you the following resources:

To learn more about "China's Stolen Children" go to:http://www.truevisiontv.com/china/index.htm

For two articles that can help us in explaining trafficking tochildren we recommend that you go to the EMK Press Web site(http://www.emkpress.com/ugdownload.html).

Scroll down to the bottom of the screen to "The Impact of IllegalAdoption on One Family" by Julia Rowlings and "Telling AboutTrafficking" by Sheena Macrae.Or use your search engine to go to the EMKPress Web site, click onthe "Resources" tab, click on "Parent Resources" and scroll down tothe subsection entitled "Toolbox for Talking about Tough Topics withYour Child." You will see the titles of these two articles on thatscreen.

We hope that you find it useful to have access to these resourcesbefore these stories appear.

S Fry
FCC-NE