From nuisance to commodity

The status of baby girls in China.

For generations, girls in rural China have been left to die in the cold or abandoned on doorsteps while families devote their scant resources to nourishing boys. But over the past decade, a wave of foreigners, mostly Americans, has poured into China with US dollars in hand to adopt mainland babies, 95 percent of them girls.

Last year, the United States issued nearly 8,000 visas to Chinese-born children adopted by American parents. More than 50,000 children have left China for the US since 1992. And more than 10,000 children have landed in other countries, according to Chinese reports.

The foreign adoption program has matched castoff Chinese babies with foreign families eager for them, while delivering crucial funding to orphanages in the mainland. But it has also spawned a tragic irony, transforming once-unwanted Chinese girls into valuable commodities worth stealing.

Via Simon World.