Father in court fight for address of lost son
By Wang Qingchu |
May 12, 2011, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A FATHER is taking legal action against an international adoption authority in east China's Jiangsu Province, demanding the address of his lost son who was adopted by an American family 16 years ago.
Li Xuwen is desperate to contact his son to let him know his parents lost him 19 years ago and did not abandon him.
He was forced to take court action as the authority refused to give him the adoptive family's address, citing privacy concerns, Yangtze Evening News reported yesterday.
Li Xiang, then 6 years old, went missing in Nanjing, the provincial capital, in May 1992. The family has been searching for him since then.
Their efforts finally bore fruit in 2007 when they learned the boy had been adopted by an American family in 1995. However, last year they learned that their son refused to look for his biological parents because he thought he had been abandoned.
"We won't force him to come back. He is a grown man and has the right to make his own choice. I just want to tell him in person that we never abandoned him. We have always been looking for him," Li told the newspaper.
Li found records of his son in a police station in Nanjing in 2007. The family burst into tears after discovering the information on the boy matched his son.
Hearts sunk
However, their hearts sunk when the parents learned their son had been adopted by Americans in 1995.
"The director of the welfare home confirmed there was such a boy. But he told us to give up as he had been adopted by an American family," Li told the newspaper.
The welfare home put up the boy for adoption as no one came to claim him in the two months after it published a notice in a local newspaper seeking his family. The home said it didn't have the address of the American family and even if it had, policy prevents it from revealing it.
Li Xiang was later adopted through the provincial service center for international adoptions.
The director of the center, surnamed Chen, declined to provide an address in order to protect the privacy of the adopters.
Unless Li Xiang and his adoptive parents want to find the biological parents, the center won't disclose their details, the report said.
After the boy went missing, his mother Fu Guihua suffered a breakdown and memory loss.
In 1998, Li Xuwen spent 7,600 yuan on a cell phone - when his annual salary was barely 10,000 yuan - so he could be reached anytime should new information emerge.
In another case, an American couple who adopted a boy in Shanghai came to the city in March in a bid to trace his biological parents, who they believe may be looking for him.
Li Xuwen is desperate to contact his son to let him know his parents lost him 19 years ago and did not abandon him.
He was forced to take court action as the authority refused to give him the adoptive family's address, citing privacy concerns, Yangtze Evening News reported yesterday.
Li Xiang, then 6 years old, went missing in Nanjing, the provincial capital, in May 1992. The family has been searching for him since then.
Their efforts finally bore fruit in 2007 when they learned the boy had been adopted by an American family in 1995. However, last year they learned that their son refused to look for his biological parents because he thought he had been abandoned.
"We won't force him to come back. He is a grown man and has the right to make his own choice. I just want to tell him in person that we never abandoned him. We have always been looking for him," Li told the newspaper.
Li found records of his son in a police station in Nanjing in 2007. The family burst into tears after discovering the information on the boy matched his son.
Hearts sunk
However, their hearts sunk when the parents learned their son had been adopted by Americans in 1995.
"The director of the welfare home confirmed there was such a boy. But he told us to give up as he had been adopted by an American family," Li told the newspaper.
The welfare home put up the boy for adoption as no one came to claim him in the two months after it published a notice in a local newspaper seeking his family. The home said it didn't have the address of the American family and even if it had, policy prevents it from revealing it.
Li Xiang was later adopted through the provincial service center for international adoptions.
The director of the center, surnamed Chen, declined to provide an address in order to protect the privacy of the adopters.
Unless Li Xiang and his adoptive parents want to find the biological parents, the center won't disclose their details, the report said.
After the boy went missing, his mother Fu Guihua suffered a breakdown and memory loss.
In 1998, Li Xuwen spent 7,600 yuan on a cell phone - when his annual salary was barely 10,000 yuan - so he could be reached anytime should new information emerge.
In another case, an American couple who adopted a boy in Shanghai came to the city in March in a bid to trace his biological parents, who they believe may be looking for him.
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