India: Time to Suspend Intercountry Adoptions?

This article tells the story of a father who triumphed over coercive tactics to adopt his child internationally.

Ramphal’s wife abandoned their two children, aged 3 and 5, at a bus station terminal. Ramphal ” traced his children to Holy Cross Social Service Centre- one of the seven recognised Indian placement agencies (RIPAs) in the city. He was not allowed to see the kids.” The process to adopt them to an Australian couple had begun.

“He then moved the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to stall the adoption process. There he was constantly persuaded to drop the case. Haq Centre for Child Rights, a Delhi based NGO, helped Ramphal in getting a revised CWC order. The kids were returned to their father in February.

In declaring the children legally free for adoption in the first place, the CWC violated a basic principle guiding the welfare of a child – which is to first attempt to restore an abandoned child to his/ her biological family.”

Corruption and Trafficking

“In 2002, Andhra Pradesh put a ban on sending state’s children abroad for adoption, after an adoption racket was unearthed. In May 2005, police arrested five kidnappers in Chennai who had supplied over 300 children to various adoption agencies. In the same year, Delhi government ordered enquiry against 10 adoption agencies.

More recently, CBI initiated charges against Preet Mandir, an adoption agency in Pune, in 2010 after allegations surfaced that the agency had procured children through illegal means.

Among the new rules in place is the directive to agencies to follow a 80-20 ratio between domestic and foreign adoptions. If an agency has 100 children, it has to place 80 of them within the country – and will lose its license if it fails to do so. The CARA stipulates the following order of priority for placement: Indian nationals, Indian nationals living abroad (NRI), Overseas Citizen of India card holders, and lastly, foreign nationals.

But many argue that these laws do no go far enough – and, as Ramphal’s case indicates, are often violated in practice.

“There is huge money involved and when a child is sent through illegal means under the disguise of adoption, it is trafficking,” says Bharti Ali, co- director of Haq Centre for Child Rights. There is also no centralized database tracking the 60 placement agencies who undertake international adoptions, or the number of children in their care.

Pawar’s petition before the Supreme Court also pointed to the existence of 5,000 Indian parents who are still on a wait-list to become parents, even as children are being sent to foreign couples.”

Child Welfare Experts Weigh In

““There should be a detailed investigation into procurement of children through extortion, blackmail, threats and bribery of government officials,” said Anjali Pawar of Sakhi, a Pune based NGO which filed a petition in the Supreme Court earlier this month demanding moratorium on all inter-country adoptions until a new law is in place.”

““Just because the government fails to fulfill its obligation to provide care and protection to children, it cannot just sell them abroad in the name of inter-country adoption under the guise of giving them a better life,” says Arun Dohle of Against Child Trafficking a Brussels and Netherlands, based NGO.”

 

DUH!

“For one, illegal trafficking cannot be solved merely by ending international adoptions. In the Preet Mandir case, for example, the CBI uncovered 5 illegal ICAs compared to 70 such domestic adoptions.

Vineeta Bhargava, assistant professor in Delhi university and author of ‘Adoptions in India: Policies & Experiences’, also points out that many children who are adopted abroad are often those who have been repeatedly rejected by Indian families.

“Children with physical handicaps, medical problems, hare lips, hole in the heart, siblings and children above three years old are rarely adopted in India,” she says, adding that foreigners often embrace such children without reservations.

There is nothing wrong if such children are provided with a better life outside their country of birth, argues Dr Bharti Sharma, former chairman of Delhi CWC.

“The right of a child to a family should not be violated. All the policies and debates should be centered on that right,” he said.

Time to suspend inter-country adoptions?

[First Post 5/16/12 by Danish Raza]

REFORM Puzzle Piece
Once again the REAL question about WHICH children are being referred internationally never comes up. The so-called “right to a family” is supposed to trump determining whether the child actually has a his biological family looking for him or bypassing the five THOUSAND waiting Indian PAPs.