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Article: Families cling to China quake orphans
- Article from:
- Sunday Gazette-Mail
- Article date:
- September 14, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008 Sunday Gazette-Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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MIANZHU, China - Four months after a massive earthquake upended
this region of Sichuan province, child welfare officers scurry to
sort out the fate of 532 orphan children.
Countless couples have stepped forward to adopt a "quake orphan"
as part of the huge wellspring of charitable concern that the
disaster untapped among ordinary Chinese citizens.
So far, only one quake orphan has been adopted into a new home.
The rest of the orphans are not tangled in bureaucratic red tape.
Rather, they remain in the tight embrace of grandparents and aunts
and uncles who refuse to let them go.
The tale of the quake orphans underscores the strength of
extended families in the era of China's "one-child ...