Helping Asian Orphans

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30978, 7 February 1966, Page 12

Helping Asian Orphans

Difficulties over the adoption of children from other countries, especially of children of a different race, must be frustrating and disheartening to prospective foster parents. Many New Zealanders have been moved by humanitarian concern to adopt an orphan baby from abroad and they have been discouraged—perhaps providentially in some cases—by the protracted inquiries surrounding the adoption and immigration proceedings. The appearance of racial prejudice in the immigration checks adds to the frustration. New Zealand has several national or racial minorities more or less integrated into the Anglo-Saxon community—Dutch, Jugoslavs, Chinese, Indians, and Polynesians. The addition of a few children from Asian countries would be of little consequence in the community as a whole. At first sight, an upbringing in a New Zealand family would seem to remove most of the problems of integration. The inquiry which the Minister of Immigration (Mr Shand) has promised to make into the admission of Asian children for adoption should put this belief to the test.

Nearly four years ago the admission of Chinese babies from Hong Kong aroused much public debate. The Government announced that, as a gesture of goodwill rather than as a measure to give any substantial relief to refugee problems in the colony, 20 babies would be admitted under the sponsorship of church groups. After pressure from those who wanted to enlarge this charitable effort, the Government increased the number to 50, although Chinese families in Hong Kong were reported to be waiting to adopt children. The debate subsided when the director of the United Nations Information Service for the South-west Pacific (Mr A. Mclver) visited the Dominion and said that the offer by New Zealand was well-meant, but mistaken. He said that it had been found adopted children usually grew up much happier and better adjusted if their foster parents were of the same race and background. The Hong Kong Government preferred adoptions by Chinese in the colony, said Mr Mclver, and it was satisfied that it could support the colony’s population if international assistance were provided for housing and if foreign trade barriers were lowered to enlarge the market for Hong Kong manufactures.

New Zealand experience with adoptions may, in time, weaken this argument. In the meantime, orphan children of other races should not have to face the added uncertainties of immigration unless their foster parents can show that they have the resources and qualities to succeed in their wellmeant mission. In material welfare most Asian children would be immeasurably better off in any New Zealand family: but material welfare cannot, by itself, bring happiness. New Zealand’s capacity comfortably to absorb non-European migrants is probably not fully extended. If the intake of nonEuropean migrants were increased to a point at which integration became uncomfortable New Zealand might rapidly lose its reputation for racial harmony. Then we would have less to offer immigrants from any quarter.

The question of adopting children from abroad is quite different from that of admitting adults who can make their own choice of home. To eschew racial prejudice and to assist the unfortunate are commendable qualities. To ignore racial differences and to under-estimate the subtler difficulties of integration is unwise and unfair to children whose welfare mieht be better promoted by generous aid sent to them in their own countries.