Adoptees of 1950s, 1960s run up against scanty record-keeping
For two decades, paperwork on children and birth parents was scanty, creating problems today for those wishing to trace their history
Almost 3,000 people who were adopted in Hong Kong more than 50 years ago may find it impossible to get official recognition as records for that period were sporadic at best.
Campaigners have been calling for an archive law to be introduced in Hong Kong to ensure government records are retained.
The Social Welfare Department said that based on information available, there were 1,300 local and overseas adoptions in the 10 years from 1950 and a further 1,600 adoptions in the decade from 1960.
Despite the patchy records, ISS said it assisted about 20 adoptees each year who were trying to trace their roots.
In 1956, Hong Kong passed the Adoption Ordinance as the number of mainland refugees in the city swelled.
Interest from prospective adoptive families overseas grew quickly in 1959 when the United Nations declared World Refugee Year and ISS Hong Kong started finding new families for children.
The Hong Kong Adoption Project, managed by agencies in Britain, placed 100 children of an average age of 23 months for adoption in that country from 1960, a 2012 study by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) showed.
Debbie Cook, 55, was one of those children.
She was found at 10 days old in a stairwell on Pratas Street, Sham Shui Po, and now runs the Hong Kong Adoptees Network, which arranges meetings for its UK-based members.
Cook said many of the adoptees were not ready to trace their birth parents but they treasured any documents or photographs they have from their time in the city.
On a visit to the city in 2010, a small group of adoptees tried to obtain identification cards, but an immigration official combed through errors in their paperwork and refused to give IDs, as many did not have parents listed on their birth certificates.
"For the Hong Kong government to accept we were from there and to give us the ID cards would mean a lot to us," Cook said.
Some members of Cook's group have limited or no paperwork, although she said two people had managed to locate their birth parents.
Records kept by non-government organisations could offer further information to adoptees.
Po Leung Kuk, a social services organisation, took in orphans during the 1950s as the number of abandoned babies in the city increased.
The organisation, which is still in operation, placed around 400 children from 1950 to 1965, including more than 10 children sent to the United States between 1958 and 1959.
Two children's homes, Fanling Babies Home and Shatin Babies Home, have closed and their archives have been scattered.
Cook said a suitcase of photographs from Fanling was lost after the home's former superintendent died. "We were just absolutely mortified," she said.
