Chapter Ⅰ General Provisions

Chapter Ⅱ

The Establishment of Adoptive Relationship

Chapter Ⅲ Validity of Adoption

Chapter Ⅳ Termination of the Adoptive Relationship

Chapter Ⅴ Legal Responsibility

Chapter Ⅵ Supplementary Provisions

Chapter Ⅰ

General Provisions

Article 1 This Law is enacted to protect the lawful adoptive relationship and to safeguard the rights of parties involved in the adoptive relationship.

Article 2 Adoption shall be in the interest of the upbringing and growth of adopted minors and in the protection of the legitimate rights of the adoptee and the adopter, in conformity with the principle of equality and voluntariness, and not in contravention of social morality.

Article 3 Adoption shall not contravene laws and regulations on family planning.

Chapter Ⅱ

The Establishment of adoptive relationship

Article 4 Minors under the age of 14, as enumerated below, may be adopted.

(1)orphans bereaved of parents;

(2)abandoned infants or children whose parents cannot be ascertained or found; or

(3)children whose parents are unable to rear them due to unusual difficulties.

Article 5 The following citizens or institutions are entitled to place out children for adoption:

(1)guardians of an orphan;

(2)social welfare institutions;

(3)parents unable to rear their children due to unusual difficulties.

Article 6 Adopters shall meet simultaneously the following requirements;

(1)childless;

(2)capable of rearing and educating the adoptee;

(3)no illness which is deemed medically as inappropriate for the adopter to adopt children; and

(4)having reached the age of 30.

Article 7 The adoption of a child belonging to a collateral relative by blood of the same generation and up to the third degree of kinship, may not be confined to the restrictions specified in Item (3), Article 4; Item (3), Article 5; and Article 9 of this law as well as the restriction of a minor under the age of 14.

An overseas Chinese, in adopting a child belonging to a collateral relative by blood of the same generation and up to the third degree of kinship, may even be not subject to the adopter childless status.

Article 8 The adopter may adopt one child only, male or female.

Orphans, disabled children or abandoned infants and children, who are raised in the social welfare institutes, and whose biological parents can not be ascertained or found, may be adopted irrespective of the restrictions that the adopter shall be childless and adopt one child only.

Article 9 Where a male person without spouse adopts a female child, the age difference between the adopter and adoptee shall be no less than 40 years.

Article 10 Where the parents intend to place out their child for adoption, they must act in concert. If one parent cannot be ascertained or found, the other parent may place out the child for adoption alone.

Where a person with spouse adopts a child, the husband and wife must adopt the child in concert.

Article 11 Adoption of a child and the placing out of the child for the adoption shall both take place on a voluntary basis.

Where the adoption involves a minor aged 10 or more, the consent of the adoptee shall be obtained.

Article 12 If the parents of a minor are both persons without full civil capacity, the guardian(s) of the minor may not place out him(her) for adoption, except when the parents may do serious harm to the minor.

Article 13 Where a guardian intends to place out an orphaned minor for adoption, the guardian must obtain the consent of the person who has obligations to support the orphan. Where the person who has obligations to support the orphan disagrees to have the orphan adopted, and the guardian is unwilling to continue the performance of his guardianship, it is necessary to change the guardian in accordance with the General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China.

Article 14 A step-father or step-mother may, with the consent of the par