Chinese newcomers sending infants home: report

Chinese newcomers sending infants home: report
Updated Tue. Jan. 2 2007 8:41 AM ET


CTV.ca News Staff

Financial burdens are forcing hundreds of recent Chinese immigrants to send their infants back home to spend their early years with relatives, according to a newspaper report.

Social workers in Toronto's Chinese community say the immigrants are separated from their own children despite the fact that, ironically, they thought Canada would be the right place to raise their little ones, The Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday.

Difficulties finding employment in their professional fields as well as unaffordable daycare is forcing Chinese newcomers to send their children back home, a trend that experts are calling "transitional parenting."

This troubling pattern may help explain a recent drop in immigration applications from China.

"We discovered dozens of professional immigrants from mainland China were doing this because they all asked us how to get passports for their babies," Florence Wong, a social worker with St. Stephen's Community House in Toronto, told The Globe.

In 2002, Wong conducted a study of Chinese immigrants in five prenatal programs.

The study shows 70 per cent of the women planned to send their children back to China to be raised by relatives.

Wong's findings were bolstered by observations from social workers in Scarborough, Ont.

The Toronto social worker has since produced a documentary that features several Chinese newcomers who sent their children back home. She screens the film for recent immigrants in an attempt to convince them to keep their children here.

But word has already trickled back to China that professionals may find difficulties finding jobs in their field and are forced instead to work in minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet.

A spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration said the department is aware that foreign professionals face difficulties getting their credentials recognized in Canada.

Marina Wilson told The Globe that the department is also setting up a portal on a website so that potential immigrants can assess themselves before they decide to make the move.

The number of immigrants applications from China to Canada has dropped dramatically in recent years.

In 2006, Canada's mission in Beijing processed some 19,000 applications, compared with a high of some 40,000 in 2004.

The number of applicants from Hong Kong has also seen a decrease, with about 32,000 last year, down from about 47,000 in 2004.

Meanwhile, the number of newcomers from India is on the rise, with 132,000 applicants in 2005, showing an increase from 2004 when some 88,000 were processed.



Personal Note:

What a shock the daycare advocates blame daycare on women sending their children back to their mothers. How many twists can this story get!

OK here is a few reasons,
One spouse cannot make enough to feed the family so they are both FORCED to work, which means sending their child away.
But the daycare advocates would rather you believe that means fund them so they can take the kid 12 hours a day. Personally I think if you funded the parents they could have their own choice of childcare and would not have to ship the kid half way across the world.
Has anyone asked why these mothers or fathers are giving up their children to their mothers half way across the world?
Funny the price of 2 kids going to china would be more expensive than bringing one grandma here to childcare.

I'd say more but I gotta run, kids bday tomorrow!

Think amongst yourselves here,,,,

why would they send their kids back to China, is it really the daycare?