Chinese girls return to orphanage 14 years after adoption by US families to highlight plight of ‘left-behinds’
Abigail Anderson and Bingjie Turner lived in an orphanage in Qinghai before being adopted by American families. They returned to bring attention to those who aren’t adopted, and who struggle to survive when they leave the home
When Abigail Anderson and Bingjie Turner returned to China’s Qinghai province, and the children’s home where they lived before being adopted and taken to the United States 14 years ago, the most poignant moment was a reunion with friends they had left behind.
“There were a lot of tears,” says Anderson, now 28. “They couldn’t believe we were really there. We had to say to them, ‘Stop crying, stop crying.’”
The main reason they wanted to go back, she says, was to meet the other orphans they’d shared the home with, and find out how they were faring as adults. “We wanted them to know that even though we are gone, we have never forgotten them,” she says.
Anderson was adopted by a family in the state of Virginia, and Turner by a family in Seattle. They are among the lucky ones. About half the 400 children who have been cared for in the Xining Children’s Home run by Hong Kong charity Christian Action have found adoptive families overseas, mostly in the US.
Reports of parents’ deaths by China’s ‘left-behind’ children prompt a closer look at the family dynamic
The others are known as the “left-behinds” – children, often with severe disabilities, who find no one to adopt or foster them, and who struggle to survive when they leave the support of the children’s home at 18. In two recent cases, former residents have been found dead alone.
Now the charity has launched a “Back to Serve” programme to encourage former residents to return and work in the home to build bridges between the home and adoptee countries, and highlight continuing issues faced by abandoned children in one of China’s poorest provinces.
