Why So Many?

The orphanages in China are filled with children, most of them girls. China's children are orphaned for many reasons including abandonment, disability, and poverty. Due to China's male-preferred society and the "one child policy", the majority of the children abandoned are girls. Traditionally, boys are preferred over girls because when they marry they stay with their parents and care for them in their old age. In contrast, when a daughter marries, she leaves her family and takes on the responsibility of helping her husband care for his parents. The desire to have a son is further reinforced by the fact that many families live in China's rural areas and rely on males to raise livestock and farm the land.

Each year, tens of thousands of Chinese children are abandoned throughout China. Most of these children are girls and are abandoned when they are newborns or infants. Some of the orphans have medical conditions and are considered "special needs" children, but the majority of them are healthy babies. A number of these children will eventually be adopted. However, many of them will remain in the orphanage until the age of 18 at which point they "age out" of the program. Whether or not these children are adopted, the lack of nurturing and opportunity to bond to someone during their first year of life will significantly affect their overall development.

China currently has hundreds of thousands of orphans living in state run and private facilities. Due to the difficulty of census tracking in the rural areas, statistics of the number of orphaned children living in China are not published. However, it is estimated that the average orphanage can have as many as 100 to 450 children at one time. As a result of these large numbers, the child-to-caregiver ratio can often be as high as 40:1. Furthermore, there is a lack of knowledge of basic infant and child care and development. These combined factors create near impossible odds for the children living in these facilities to thrive as they grow.