China's orphaned expected to be in thousands
Updated
The official death toll from China's earthquake has now risen to 51-thousand. That means the number of orphaned children could also be in the thousands. Some children face the social welfare system, but it's hoped others will be adopted.
Presenter: Amanda Morgan
Speakers: Dr Larry Gee works for the China Red Cross; Yi Pei Zhuang, the Ministry of Civil Affairs; Deidre Daniel, Morning Sun Centre of Hope.
MORGAN: Chinese authorities are stretched to their limits dealing with the tragedy of last week's earthquake.
And now they face a new challenge, the flood of children orphaned by the disaster.
The earthquake has killed tens of thousands of people, thousands of children may also now be orphans.
GEE: Many of them would be having nightmares. They would be feeling depressed over the loss of their mother or father, their friends. And they would be feeling very confused about what's going on and trying to understand what happened to them, what that means for the future of them.
MORGAN: Dr Larry Gee works for the China Red Cross. He says the orphaned children will be suffering deep psychological trauma.
Many orphaned children have witnessed horrific scenes. Some have been trapped under rubble others have seen family members or classmates die. Most have lost their homes. These children are now living in makeshift camps and could be there for months.
In the city of Mianying a sports stadium shelters thousands of earthquake survivors. Many parents are searching for surviving children. And also amongst the refugees are children who fear their parents are dead.
The Chinese Government now has to decide how to care for these children.
State-run media says until order is restored in Sichuan province, local governments will be responsible for the orphans.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs says many people and organisations domestically and internationally have offered to adopt children orphaned by the earthquake.
But Chinese authorities are in no rush to adopt them out.
The ministry's Yi Pei Zhuang says authorities will need to confirm whether the children are actually orphans and this could take a long time.
ZHUANG: Yi pei zhuang - ministry of civil affairs 1;00 actually we still need some time. Because now the status of the orphans could not be confirmed at this moment. We are not sure that their families, their mothers and fathers are lost or not. Actually it's a very complicated process.
MORGAN: Dr Gee says the best way for orphaned children to return to any degree of normalcy is to be placed in a family environment.
GEE: My hope is that they will be adopted by family members, that's typically the way that chinese culture responds to a situation where a child is left orphaned. I do a lot of orphanage work around the world and orphanages in the best run circumstances do not replacement and do not match up with the value of a family. The longer they might spend in an institutional setting i think that will cost them more emotional harm.
DANIEL: On the one hand I think that if they are grouped together at least they're with other children who are experiencing the same things. Perhaps they might not feel so all alone. On the other hand being institutionalised is never a happy thing.
Deidre Daniel has set up a charity children's hospital in west China. She says the Chinese Government will do all it can for the orphaned children but many will end up in the social welfare system. Some institutions have excellent facilities while others are in need of more funding.
DANIEL: Bottom line it typically comes down to overcrowding and not enough resources. The larger cities tend to have the better orphanges. Some of the poorest regions don't receive that kind of attention so they unfortunately don't get the beneft of those additional resoucres.
Qualified counsellors are also in demand in China.
Dr Larry Gee is organising training sessions for people wanting to counsel traumatised children, as well as adults, affected by the earthquake.
GEE:The counselling field has been rapidly expanding in the last four to five years in china, rapidly increasing the number of trained psychologists and trained helpers but it's still in its infancy. So there's not as much available as there might be in other countries.
MORGAN: But even when the rubble is cleared and the towns are rebuilt, this massive natural disaster will have changed the course of many children's lives forever.
