Book Discussion: Winner, 2020 Distinguished Book Award, Asian Law and Society Association (ALSA), Anna High, Non-Governmental Orphan Relief in China: Law, Policy, and Practice (Routledge, 2019): Introduction by Hiroshi Fukurai

Abstract

Furthermore, in 2020, China, India, and South Korea became the top three countries in the world that made arrangements for international adoption of their orphans and vulnerable children. 1 Since the beginning of this millennium, the "geopolitical” analysis of the rise in the number of orphans and other vulnerable children began to receive increased international attention from socio-legal scholars, state policy-makers, human rights organizations, and international agencies around the globe. [...]agencies included the UN and other international groups, including UNICEF, the Defense for Children International (DCI), Save the Children, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among many others. 2 The increase in vulnerable children spiked when the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 6 Many orphaned children were adopted by Chinese families without knowledge of their ancestral connections to their parents, siblings, and families in Japan, despite the China–Japan collaborative efforts to address this human rights issues for many decades following the war. 7 The governmental policy on reproductive restriction due to China's one-child policy has also affected unwanted pregnancies and infant femicides for many decades. 8 In addition, the lack of public and private resources and inabilities of families to deal with disabled children and those with significant handicaps have led to their abandonment and calamitous situations. While this reproductive policy might not have been imposed on other ethnic minorities, such as Muslims in Xinjiang and Tibetan autonomous regions, the lack of resources for orphans and other vulnerable children has also been reported elsewhere, including those areas faced with illegal adoption and child abandonment, among others. 9 There has been a rapid economic ascension of the Chinese economy, during which, according to the World Bank (WB) report, more than 850 million Chinese people have moved out of destitute poverty.