Grace Po-Chee Ko - Adoptive Parenthood in Hong Kong

Adoption is one of the earliest social services in Hong Kong. In the 1940s and 1950s, hundreds of unwanted children and orphans often found on the streets or left in hospitals were easily adopted by interested individuals or families after performing some simple registration procedures with the then Secretary for Home Affairs. Chinese customary adoption was also legally accepted when two known or unknown consenting persons agreed upon the adoption of a child on the basis of private arrangement. During this period, children were abandoned mainly due to financial reasons. Girls, who were assigned a lower status in the Chinese society, were given away readily by birth parents. As a result, a number of childrens homes, mainly non-government organizations were established to provide residential care for these children until they reached their late adolescence or early adulthood. Children placed for adoption were considered fortunate.

In 1958, the International Social Service began to process adoption for families overseas. In the 1970s, some joint work began to take place between the government and Caritas-Hong Kong. These families were mostly Caucasians, though some were Chinese who lived abroad.

The Adoption Unit of the Social Welfare Department was established in 195657 when the Adoption Ordinance came into force on 12th October, 1956. However, the formalization of adoption work in Hong Kong did not emerge until the Adoption Ordinance was amended in 1972 so that adoption in Hong Kong have to be effected only in accordance with such ordinance. Yet, for the following 16 years, different family service centres handled pre-adoption services over the territory that reflected the inadequate coordination and continuity among social work professionals as far as pre-adoption counselling and procedures were concerned. The situation improved in 198788 when pre-adoption work and adoption work were centralized so that related duties were performed by the same social worker under the Adoption Unit.

Although there was a support group for English speaking adoptive parents in the late seventies, now known as the Adoptive Families in Hong Kong, such a mutual-aid organization for Chinese adopters, now known as the Happy Parents Association, did not come into place until 1992. It was registered as a charitable organization in October, 1993. Both were self-financing organizations independent of the Social Welfare Department. The nonexistence of a post-legal adoption service was largely due to the belief held by policy makers that families having problems in the adoptive relationship can approach family service centres like every other family. On one hand, this showed that the unique nature of the adoptive family life cycle was not seriously taken into consideration. On the other hand, it reflected the fact that finding suitable homes for children in need in order to relieve the high cost of residential care was the major concern for adoption in Hong Kong. A well-formulated child welfare policy was not identifiable, and adoption was often seen as an adjunct to any other child placement machinery such as residential care and foster care.