Editing One-child policy (section)

=== Transnational adoption ===
In April 1992, China implemented laws that enabled foreigners to adopt their orphan children, with the number of children each orphanage could offer for international adoption being limited by the [[China Center of Adoption Affairs]]. That same year, 206 children were adopted to the United States, according to the U.S. State Department.<ref name="SchusterInstitute2011">{{Cite web |date=22 February 2011 |title=China: Adoption |url=https://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/china.html#:~:text=In%20April%201992,%20China%20implemented,to%20the%20U.S.%20State%20Department. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207124418/https://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/adoption/china.html |archive-date=7 February 2012 |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=www.brandeis.edu |publisher=Brandeis University, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism}}</ref> Since then, the demand for healthy infant girls increased and transnational adoption increased rapidly. In accordance with this high demand, China began defining more restrictions on foreign adoption, including limitations on applicant's age, marital status, mental and physical health, income, family size, and education.<ref name="SchusterInstitute2011" /> According to the U.S. State Department, there have been over 80,000 international adoptions from China since international adoptions were implemented.

As the flow of foreigners adopting from China increased, so did illicit adoption practices. Families in China that did not or could not keep their child would often be subject to abandonment or infanticide. Abandoned babies often found themselves in orphanages, ready to be adopted. This also made it easy for governments to engage in the trafficking of children. In the years between 2002 and 2005, officials in Hunan and Guangdong provinces profited from the buying and trafficking of approximately 1,000 abducted babies for international adoption.<ref name="SchusterInstitute2011" />