Society needs to accept disabilities

As the annual sessions of the top legislative body and political advisory body continue, China Daily collects the questions that netizens care most about and solicits answers from political advisers and deputies to the National People's Congress.

The question

If a disabled child in China becomes an orphan, for whatever reason, the State should know about it. How does the government ensure the child is cared for either by the State or a private orphanage?

- A netizen who goes by HailChina

The answer

Both the Ministry of Civil Affairs and nongovernment charities care about disabled children and think carefully about this problem. Currently, we have welfare houses that cover cities and the countryside. Whenever disabled orphans are found, they can be sheltered in a timely manner.

However, adoption lies more in the social arena. That's why I have called for people to change their attitudes toward adoption. In many developed countries, families take in orphans and consider it as a way to repay society. But in China, even a well-off family will regard it as a burden. Chinese need to accept that disabilities are normal and that the care of disabled people reflects the humanitarianism of the whole society.

I think one radical way to reduce the number of orphans is to waken the sense of responsibility in parents, thereby preventing the abandonment of disabled children. Another concern is the attention paid to sound child rearing. Additionally, parents should receive premarital checkups to reduce the births of some disabled children.