Caring face fails to dispel charges of orphan abuse claims orphan abuse claim s Officials struggle to dent orphan abuse claims Orphanage officials fail to dispel abuse claims charge

Teresa Poole in Shanghai visits a home and finds questions unanswered

First there was the group tour of the physiotherapy centre, the computer room and a chance to sit in on morning lessons at the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute, where well-fed, brightly clothed infants were being looked after by tender child-care workers.

Then came the repeated denials from officials about last weekend's accusations from Human Rights Watch (HRW) that babies and children within this orphanage faced deliberate starvation and physical abuse until 1993. "A big lie," said Han Weicheng, formerly director of the orphanage between 1989 and 1994, when asked about the report's data.

And finally, there was the only hard number that could be wrung from Mr Han despite hours of questioning. In 1989, he admitted, the mortality rate in the orphanage was about 19 per cent, the highest he could recall. "Because that year was very cold and we had an electricity failure." he added. The figure given by HRW for the same year, quoting Chinese government documents, was 22.7 per cent.

It was always going to be a difficult morning for the officials, faced with a group of foreign correspondents on a Foreign Ministry-organised tour of the Shanghai orphanage cited in the allegations of alarming death- rates. The government had been anxious that we should visit, especially if we had television cameras.

This was China's showcase orphanage, the one where, according to our hosts, never a week went by without foreign visitors, where foreign donations accounted for between one-sixth and one-third of funding, and where overseas couples come to adopt a Chinese child. But that was just as the HRW report itself had described it, claiming the institute had been sanitised in mid-1993.

Our group, however, wanted to talk about the situation before 1993. Could they provide annual figures for deaths so that these could be compared with evidence provided to HRW by Zhang Shuyun, a former doctor at the orphanage who fled China last year?

The hundreds of pages of orphanage records she smuggled out show, for instance, that 153 infants and children died between December 1988 and December 1989, and 207 died between November 1991 and October 1992. The capacity of the orphanage has always been about 500. "Actually," explained Mr Han, "many children when they arrive here are almost dead." The abandoned children's poor state of health on arrival was to blame for the deaths, officials repeatedly said.

Were they saying that the source documents reproduced in the HRW report were false? "I don't know, I have not seen the report," Mr Shi said, although Mr Han admitted seeing a table from the report.

The officials produced statistics that clashed with the figures in the report and there was no explanation of Ministry of Civil Affairs statistics which showed that in 1989 one- quarter of inmates at China's urban orphanages died.

At times the confrontation reached near farce. Over the past few days the picture of an emaciated 11-year-old boy, Jian Xun, has been published around the world showing him tied to a bed, 10 days before he died. Could someone explain the condition of the boy? Huang Jiachun, deputy director of the orphanage, leapt into action. Dr Zhang had "lost her common sense" in claiming that a boy named Jiang [sic] was in the picture, he said. They had checked the records and found that the only person to die on 17 July 1992 was Jian Xun - the orphanage officials had been misled by a translation error.

The boy in the photograph was indeed Jian Xun, it was finally admitted, though the allegations of neglect were flatly denied. The boy had become very sick, could not absorb food, and had been put on an intravenous drip, Mr Han said. "As the director of this institute, I never allowed anyone to tie children to the bed like this."

Mr Han said Dr Zhang had fabricated rumours about him because she coveted his job as director. He accused her of being "a woman with low moral standards", citing her attempts to be reimbursed for bus fares when she went out on institute errands. He said she had instigated an orphan girl into making allegations that he was guilty of rape. "I think she has a target. In this way [she] can go to America," he said.

Shi Derong confirmed that there had been four inquiries by different Shanghai government departments between 1989 and 1992 into Dr Zhang's and other people's allegations. Mr Han was suspended for a year. At the end of 1992, the final investigation completely exonerated him and the orphanage. HRW alleged that the final report was a cover-up after Communist Party leaders in Shanghai decided the orphanage situation was a "human rights" issue that must not be made public.

The HRW report also cited evidence that since mid-1993 unwanted young orphans and abandoned children were being "dumped" instead at Shanghai's No 2 Social Welfare Institute on Chongming Island, about an hour and a half's journey out of the city, which houses mentally retarded and handicapped adults. It said many of the patterns of abuse and neglect had been transferred there.

Could we perhaps visit the institute? There could be a "problem", Mr Shi and Mr Han agreed. Some of the mentally handicapped inmates living there had families whichwould first have to be informed about a visit. "You can raise the request with the Foreign Ministry," Mr Shi said.

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