Revision as of 14:50, 9 December 2015

2010-14: Trends

The Times of India

2010-14: in-country and tnter-country adoptions

Feb 21 2015

50% dip in figure from 2010 to 2014

With an estimated 50,000 orphan children in want of safe homes in the country, Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday blamed the “idleness and deliberate lying“ of adoption agencies for delays and bottlenecks in the process. Domestic adoptions in India have nearly halved from 5,693 in 2010 to 2,503 in 2014. Maneka, who holds charge as minister for women and child development, said she wanted 15,000 children adopted in a year instead of the annual rate of 800-1000. “I am actually appalled by all of you. I have found bottlenecks, idleness, unconcern, deliberate lying... in this process you have destroyed thousands of lives,“ she said.

The minister was addressing the national meet on adoption organized by Cara (Central Adoption Resource Authority). Describing the agencies as “irresponsible and unaccountable Gandhi said, “When I joined in 2000, the adoption rate was 1,500-1,200, which tumbled to 400-800 per year. In a country which has got 50,000 orphans who can be adopted, it is shameful that the number is 800 to 1,000,... and it continues to come down. The minister also accused some agencies of preferring foreign parents over Indians. “Many of you won't give (the child) to Indians, you wait for a foreigner. I have zero tolerance for anybody who denies adoption. In our new act, Cara will have a lot of power.One of its powers is to remove Sara (State Adoption Resource Authority), to remove adoption agencies, to completely ban them,“ he said.

The minister also said that a foster care scheme will be launched for orphan children under which families will be paid by the government to keep them.

In an effort to provide identity and improved monitoring of orphans, the ministry gave away Aadhaar cards to children from adoption homes.

The ministry is also hoping to notify the new adoption guidelines governing adoption that is expected to speed up the process and introduce transparency . Maneka gave directions that the entire process of adopting a child should not take more than four months and the performance of adoption agencies will now be monitored by the ministry and Cara on a weekly basis.

2015: adoption rooms for foreigners eased

The Times of India

Mar 27 2015

Centre eases adoption rules for foreigners

Indrani Bagchi

Foreign nationals adopting Indian children can look forward to a less traumatic experience of taking home a child with the foreign ministry streamlining the passport issuance guidelines. The ministry will no longer insist on a separate birth certificate to issue a passport to an adopted child. The court order which is necessary for adoption will suffice as proof of birth date.

The order gains significance since prospective parents, instead of running from pillar to post to obtain a birth certificate, can now get an Indian passport for their adopted children based only on the court order.

Despite being a member of the Hague Convention from 1993, there were some rules that made things interminably long and difficult for people wanting to take home children from India.

Muktesh Pardeshi, chief passport officer, told TOI, “While our systems have become much better, we found that it was not serving or phans and abandoned children effectively.“ For interested parents, the route to adoption was tricky , because the process demanded a court order, a “no-objection certificate“ from Central Adoption Resource Authority , the nodal agency in the Indian government, and a birth certificate.

January-March 2015

The Times of India, Jul 07 2015

Adoptions up first time in 3 yrs; 50k still need homes

A doption of children in the country has gone up for the first time in three years, reports Himanshi Dhawan. An awareness campaign and a bid to cut down red-tape in the process of adoption can be credited for the spike in numbers -from 999 in October-December, 2014 to 1,368 between January and March 2015. The number is a fraction of 50,000 orphans requiring homes, according to latest data available with the Central Adoption Resource Authority . It has only 1,200 children lined up for adoption against the demand from 10,000 parents. Of them, 9,000 are Indians, the rest NRIs or foreigners.

In February 2015, WCD minister Maneka Gandhi had pulled up adoption agencies for “idleness and deliberate lying and said the figures were “shameful“, adding she wanted 15,000 kids to find homes a year.

Foreign citizens with Indian husbands

The Times of India, Jul 17 2015

Rosy Sequeira

`American with Indian hubby can adopt kid'

An American woman's prayers to adopt a 6-year-old boy with special needs in India were answered when the Bombay high court directed a district court to quickly process the application of the adoption agency . The woman, along with her Indian husband, had moved court after the Central Adoption Resource Authority , the nodal body for adoption of Indian children, refused to grant an NOC, saying it was an inter-country adoption matter and she was required to comply with a rule pertaining to adoption by foreigners living in India. The HC allowed the couple to retain foster care of the born, born to an unwed mother and kept at a Pune orphanage-cum-adop tion agency, Arun Aashray .

The American, a trained nurse living in India since 2008, had volunteered with the agency and got acquainted with the boy . The court was earlier informed that he faced rejection thrice and suffered from behavioural and health problems.

CARA's advocate D A Nalawade told a bench of Justice V M Kanade and Justice B P Colabawalla that it will treat the matter as an “exceptional case“ and insisted it was an inter-country adoption issue.Nalavade argued the American will have to comply with a CARA rule for foreigners and apply to the US embassy for an NOC. He said that also applicable would be the order of priority (NRIs, followed by overseas citizens of India, persons of Indian origin and foreign nationals).

Missionaries of Charity’s stand

The Times of India, Oct 14 2015

Picture courtesy: The Times of India, Oct 14 2015

Who can adopt a child in India, and who cannot? The broad guidelines; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Oct 14 2015

Govt can't force nuns to continue adoption work: Legal experts

A recent decision by the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) to discontinue adoption work

Lawyers, pointed out that no one had a right to force MoC -the Roman Catholic order founded by Mother Teresa 65 years ago -to continue adoptions. Though the Missionaries of Charity has not clearly specified its opposition to the single-parent rule, the release it issued did link the decision to the new adoption guidelines, under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 which came into effect from August 2015. The new rules require registration of every prospective parent online. The Central Adoption Resource Authority (Cara) then assigns them a registered adoption agency when their turn comes.

This means that the issue of “religion will now come to the fore, said Bharati Dasgupta of Catalysts for Social Action which works towards rehabilitation of abandoned, destitute children in Maharashtra. “Even earlier guidelines permitted adoption by single parents, but some agencies were perhaps not following that norm. Now that there is no escape route--due to centralized database of registration by adoptive parents--the MoC may have decided to opt out.“ But having said that, Dasgupta added that it was MoC's choice and no one could compel them to continue working as an adoption agency. “An agency cannot give precedence to religion over national laws or guidelines. But every agency needs to apply for renewal of its license regularly and the government authority can extend it or cancel it; similarly, the agency can choose to seek renewal or not.

Girl child preferred

The Times of India, December 4, 2015

Children adopted in India, 2012-15, total number and gender-wise break up ; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, December 4, 2015

Himanshi Dhawan  When it comes to adoptions, Indians prefer the girl child

The famed Indian preference for boys is turned on its head when it comes o adoption. It appears that when Indian parents, deprived of a child by nature, go seeking an offspring -it's usually for a girl. Data for the ast three years reveals that a significantly higher number of girls are adopted than boys. According to Central Adoption Resource Author ty (CARA) records, 1,848 boys were adopted in 20122013 as compared to 2,846 girls. Total adoptions in the year were 4,694. Since then, adoptions declined in 2013 but he preference for girls has persisted. In 2013-2014, prospective parents adopted 2,293 girls as compared to 1,631 boys while in 2014-2015, 2,300 girls were adopted as compared to 1,688 boys. While total domestic adoptions have come down from 4,694 to 3,924 in 2013-2014, it has increased marginally to 3,988 this year.

While lesser availability of boys for adoption is a factor which could be driving this trend, it is also true that couples who have given up hope of having a child of their own do not mull too much over gender since adoption in India continues to be a long-drawn process.

However, the number of adoptions is still way below the demand. There are about 9,000 prospective parents registered with CARA. Adoption data however paints a dismal picture so far. The highest number of children adopted was 6,593 in 2011-2012. Since then, the numbers have steadily declined till this year. There are an estimated 50,000 children in need for a secure home and care and protection. Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi has set an ambitious target of 15,000 adoptions for this year.

Gandhi has in recent times been severely critical of the functioning of adoption agencies. In fact, the ministry introduced fresh guidelines for adoption in August this year. The norms mandate all agencies involved to be registered online with a central database of children.

According to experts, one of the reasons why girls may be preferred for adoption could be the increasing number of single women keen to complete their family . “In case a single woman adopts, the preference is for a girl child,“ an NGO representative said.