China's Ministry of Civil Affairs says the number of international adoptions has remained steady in recent years, with between 10 and 15 percent of Chinese children adopted by overseas families since 2009.

While foreign adoptions comprise only a small proportion of those in China - about 12 percent in 2014 - most children who are taken in by overseas homes have special needs and are adopted by families for charitable reasons, according to Tong Xiaojun, head of the Children's Research Institute of China. In contrast, she says, Chinese adopters care more about whether the child is good-looking or how tall the child is.

"If families already have a boy, they want a girl, and if they have a girl, they want a boy," she says. "The more advanced medical and welfare systems in the West also encourage foreign families to adopt children with special needs. As a result, parents overseas who adopt are more capable of taking care of these children," Tong says, adding that raising a child with special needs is difficult for many families in China.

Michelle and Scott Morell from Texas have adopted three Chinese children with special needs. The couple says they were drawn to China because the process was very clear compared with some other countries.

"There were more checks and balances in place," Michelle Allen explains. "You did this, you did that, and then you were matched with the child."

Two of their boys, Luke from Shaanxi province and Ethan from Anhui province, both 3, were born with gastric intestinal problems.

International adoption of baby girls from China started to slow in 2006 when there were fewer infant orphans, and the ones who were available always went for domestic adoptions first.

Shannon Phillips, promotions and outreach director at Great Wall China Adoption, a nonprofit organization that has matched more than 9,000 Chinese children with US families, says: "China's waiting program for a child is getting more and more popular."

Under the program, which also exists in some other countries, Chinese orphanages identify children with special needs. Western families are adopting many of these children.

Chuck Johnson, president of the US National Council for Adoption, based in Virginia, says: "China has been very innovative in identifying children with special needs. In other countries, you really don't know where kids are, and you don't know their status.

"China systematically identifies special needs children faster than it did previously, and they become available for adoption. It has also allowed US agencies to partner with orphanages to find families with special needs children. I can talk to a family today, they can pick out their child, and they will be home this time next year with the child."

Johnson also says the number of foreign adoptions by American families has continued to fall because some countries have been told by the US government that they must improve child welfare to meet the standards for adoption. The US has halted adoptions from Cambodia and Guatemala because of fraud.

"China has the strongest oversight for all orphans. There is a very strong authority that monitors it. Such oversight and protection ... aren't always in place in other countries," Johnson says.

He hopes the US government will do more to help developing countries that don't meet the standards to develop such safeguards.

Phillips adds that more US families have become open to adopting children on China's waiting list.

Three years ago, it would have been something of a shock if they had matched a child aged over 7, "but now we do that on a regular basis", she says.

Contact the writer at hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com and hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com

( China Daily European Weekly 04/22/2016 page1)