April 15, 1998
Anxious parents look to rescue Chinese orphans
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Americans describe "throwaway babies" as unwanted or unnurtured children. But the term is redefined in China, where each day an average of 4,000 babies - 98 percent of whom are girls because of religious and cultural reasons - are abandoned and left to survive in orphanages.
Slightly more than one day's amount of those girls, or about 5,000, find new homes in the United States - each year. Emilee Prins, 2, of Coopersville, Mich., was one of the lucky ones.
"Emilee was left in a box at the gate of a government building," said Kristi Prins, who with her husband, Marvin, adopted Emilee from China over a year ago. "Our heart's desire is to get these children out."
For the Prins, adoption is their mission. They are western Michigan representatives of Great Wall China Adoption, a nonprofit agency based in Texas. The couple came to Traverse City recently to discuss the fate of Chinese orphans and to help prospective parents navigate the adoption process.
More than 25 people attended the meeting at the Governmental Center. Some were single, some married. Some had older children; others were unable to have children. But all wanted to share a home with a child in need.
Rosie Flickinger of Long Lake Township came to the meeting with her husband. Unable to have children, they were looking toward foreign adoption after a recent experience in Morocco. There Flickinger was waited on by a child whose family has been enslaved to another family for more than 900 years.
"I wanted to take that little girl home," Flickinger said. "In so many countries, girls are thrown away.
"It is just a chance of fate that Emilee is here today with the Prins and not tied to a crib in an orphanage somewhere."
Flickinger is in her mid-30s and her husband, Craig, is 10 years older, making them less desirable candidates for domestic adoptions, she said. However, they are entering the age range considered best for foreign adoptions, where officials in countries like China strongly prefer older, more-settled couples. In fact, the policy in China favors couples older than 35.
China opened its doors to foreign adoptions in 1994. Now, 98 percent of the 4,000 babies abandoned there each day are girls. Government mandates of only one child per family prompt Chinese parents to abandon a girl and try again for a boy because boys are more desirable for a variety of religious and cultural reasons, people familiar with the situation say.
For Americans, adopting these foreign babies proves a complicated process that requires faith and perseverance, said the Prins of Great Wall China Adoption. It requires at least three months to gather all the paperwork, including police reports, employment verification, credit checks, a home visit and complicated Immigration and Naturalization Service forms. Then there is a six- to nine-month wait for notification that a baby has been assigned. And then the flurry of travel arrangements begins because the new parents must fly to China to complete the adoption process. The $15,000 total cost includes 10 to 12 days in China.
"We had never even been out of the country and here we were going to China," Kristi Prin said. "It was a great experience. We got to meet the man who found Emilee and take his picture."