What are the Chinese “orphanages” and The Dying Rooms controversy?
According to Human-Rights Watch/Asia 1996 report, there were 40,000 warehouses of old people, disabled and infants, often all living under one roof. The death rate in these institutions reached 80%, the same as in Nazi concentration camps. Since the late 90s, a handful of orphanages-perhaps a couple dozens-have become showcase institutions that supply babies for foreign adoptions. Even in those, adoptive parents are permitted to visit only selected play areas filled with colors and toys. Reports of the other areas of these same orphanages reveal unacceptable practices such as tying babies to their potty seats for hours on end. These showcase institutions were built after a ’95 BBC documentary which coined the name “The Dying Rooms,” the International Women’s Conference in ’95, the above-mentioned ’96 Human Rights Watch report, and the ’97 World Health Organization report of 50 million women “missing” in China because of institutionalized killing. All these reactions made the Chinese go
