Abandoned in India and US: Intercountry Adoption Gone Wrong

Manisha was 9 when she was adopted with her sister by an American couple from a center in Mumbai.

“Within months, the American foster parents were complaining that Manisha had behavioural problems and insisting they would keep her young sister, but not her. Manisha’s case wound up in the Indian courts. The Bombay High Court, which has been hearing the case, was informed that the link adoption agency (in the US) had placed Manisha with another family, but things didn’t work out and she was repatriated to India in June 2008.”

The Family Welfare Center (FWC) is now her guardian and her American adoptive parents must still provide financial support. The center says she has a learning disability and “is undergoing therapy with a psychologist and a psychiatrist.”

The possible bright spot of this situation is that “[s]ignificantly, the Bombay High Court has used Manisha’s case to ask CARA, India’s nodal adoption agency, to plug gaps in the system.

The court asked CARA to create stringent inter-country adoption guidelines, as well as a system that makes foster parents financially liable if they seek to revoke an adoption.”

This question that applies to many countries, including India still remains:  “Is India careless about the psychological health of the children it puts up for overseas adoption?”

http://tinyurl.com/4utex8r
[The Times of India 1/30/11 by Ambika Pandit]

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