China's attitude toward girls deplorable

This week, a friend will travel to China to meet her infant daughter. The child was abandoned at birth and cared for by a stranger who found her near her home. The woman cared for the child until space became available in an orphanage, where the baby has lived since.

This child's personal history is gut-wrenching but not uncommon in China. China's "one child" policy and an old cultural preference for male heirs has devalued girls to the point that some infants are left in the countryside as if they were an unwanted litter of kittens.

Those attitudes and practices have resulted in a growing gender imbalance. In the past 20 years in China, female births have declined markedly compared with male births. The ratio is 117 boys for 100 girls, based on a 2000 Census.

Faced with a future in which 15 percent of Chinese men don't have wives, the government has launched an initiative to correct the imbalance within the next decade. The campaign includes an education initiative, "Care for Girls," to promote the value of both sexes. Financial incentives will be provided to families that raise no more than two daughters. Some of the benefits include a free education for girls, exempting rural parents from paying taxes and helping build new homes for parents with two girls — as long as they stop having children.

The government also is cracking down on nonmedical use of ultrasound exams, which were outlawed 10 years ago because it was believed to contribute to "selective abortions."

On the brink of a sociological disaster due to a "bride shortage," the government is attempting to unravel the bad outcome of policy intended to control population growth. The up side is, many Americans and people from other developed nations desperately want these baby girls. They're willing to endure a mountain of paperwork, home studies, background checks and credit checks to ensure these children will have loving homes. There should be strenuous requirements for any adoption. But it strikes me as odd that a society that places so little value on baby girls that many are abandoned at birth becomes immensely concerned about their welfare if someone from another country wants to adopt them.

My hope is that China is turning the corner regarding how it treats girls. Beijing literally lifted up to the world an adorable Chinese girl during the closing ceremonies of the Athens Games. As she rose out of what appeared to be a giant red lantern, I clucked at the hypocrisy of it all. Not knowing the history of the "one child" policy, one could be left with the impression that Chinese girls are universally beloved. Friends and acquaintances who have adopted Chinese babies tell a different story.