Number of adoptions drops drastically: CWLF

According to Bai Li-fang (白麗芳) of Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) (兒福聯盟), 20 years ago around 4,000 children were adopted annually, now the number has dwindled to a mere 2,600, in which over half were adopted by their step-parents or family relatives, meaning the real problem is worse than the number suggests.

The CWLF pointed out that while the number of orphans is steadily multiplying, adoptive families are also gradually diminishing. Economic pressure and increased cost of living are among the top factors affecting people's willingness to adopt.

According to Bai, many adoptive families are looking for healthy children with “clean backgrounds,” but due to the increase of social problems in Taiwan, most children up for adoption have complicated backgrounds, such as being conceived out of wedlock, with their parents dead, missing, or currently behind bars.

Such mismatch between adoptive families' expectations and the reality contributes to the drop in successful adoptions, she said. Even if the child is lucky enough to be adopted, the possibility of being returned to the orphanage lingers.

Although data demonstrates stagnation in adoptive families, many single, widowed or divorced women have applied to adopt. Same-sex couples also express high interest in adopting children.

However, as many of these children come from incomplete families, their biological parents have expressed wishes for their offspring to be accepted into a traditional family rather than raised by a single parent, explained Bai. Furthermore, as same-sex marriage is not yet legalized in Taiwan, children adopted by same-sex families also face the potential danger of discrimination.

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