China confirms to tighten foreign adoption rules

BEIJING, Dec 25 (Reuters) China today confirmed it will enforce stricter rules for foreigners wanting to adopt Chinese children, barring overweight, depressed or unmarried applicants.

U S-based adoption agencies first reported the new guidelines earlier this month.

''We will continue to deal with foreign adoption according to law,'' Xing Kaimin, director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs' China Centre of Adoption Affairs, was quoted as saying by the official China Daily newspaper.

''The priority criteria are meant to protect children's interests and shorten the waiting time for more qualified applicants,'' Xing said. ''It does not mean we are prejudiced against less qualified applicants, who can still apply.'' One of the new criteria is that applicants should have a healthy body mass index -- a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

''Obese people are more likely to suffer from diseases and might have a shorter life expectancy,'' the report cited Xing as saying.

The guidelines go into effect on May 1 and are designed to ''give preference to more suitable applicants'', it added.

Applicant couples have to have been married for at least two years and single people cannot adopt, according to the new rules.

And people who have been divorced must have been remarried for at least five years.

''Foreign couples planning to adopt Chinese children need to have stable marriages, sound physical and mental health and comfortable finances and must not be overweight,'' the newspaper said.

''We want to pick the most qualified so that our children can grow up in even better conditions,'' Xing said, adding that they had told more than 100 adoption agencies in 16 countries of the new rules.

Perhaps seeking to assuage worries of prospective parents, Xing said the rules were ''temporary and might be revised''.

Of the some 50,000 Chinese children adopted by foreigners in the past decade, four-fifths have gone to U S families, the report said.

Last year, around 8,000 Chinese children were adopted by U S families, up from 5,000 in 2001, it added.

It can cost up more than 15,000 dollars to adopt a Chinese child.

Girls account for the vast majority of adoptions because of a traditional Chinese preference for boys, and because China's strict controls on family size result in many female babies being abandoned at birth.

Reuters DKA DB1122