Xueli Abbing is 16 years old and has been modeling since she was 11. Today, her success in the profession is such that she has been able to appear on the glossy pages of Vogue magazine, the “bible” of style worldwide. Xueli means “beautiful snow”: this is the name given to her in China, where she was born, in the children’s home where she was abandoned and from which, at the age of 3, she was adopted by a Dutch family.
Xueli, in fact, is albino and albinism, characterized by lack of pigmentation of skin and hair, as well as some retinal problems due to lack of melanin, is one of the physical conditions and health-related that appears in the list drawn up by the Chinese authorities for the so-called “special need”, the children who are decreed to be adopted internationally.
Since 1979, when Deng Xiaoping established the one-child rule, Beijing’s disgraceful demographic policy, in addition to indiscriminately promoting abortion and forced sterilization, has created a staggering number of “orphans”, children abandoned by their parents, sometimes for more or less serious disabilities, sometimes simply because they are female.
In 2015 and 2021, the Chinese government, realizing the dismal demographic winter into which the country is increasingly plunging, opened up the possibility for families to give birth to a second and then a third child, without, however, loosening the grip of despotism on the population.