How Could You? Hall of Shame-India-Alwar Foster Home

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Alwar, India, “a 17-year-old boy was allegedly beaten up so badly that he got a fracture in his hand. In order to hush up the matter, the foster home authorities allegedly didn’t get him to a doctor, only to make his situation worse. After the matter came to light during an inspection, he was taken to a doctor on Saturday.”

“More horrifying stories are trickling out of a foster home in Alwar which hogged headlines when 10 children — three orphans and seven juveniles — were made to shave off their heads unwillingly.

The plight of these children came to light when members of the Child Welfare Committee conducted a survey of the foster home and submitted its report to the social welfare and justice minister Arun Chaturvedi. Of the 14 children currently living at the foster home, 10 were made to shave off their heads so that officials could save on shampoo, soap and oil.

District collector, Alwar, Mahveer Swami visited the foster home on Saturday and took stock of the situation. It was allegedly that the home’s caretaker beat up a 17-year-old juvenile offender causing serious injuries on his hand.

The foster home superintendent, Naval Khan, however, denied the charges and said that the boy was not beaten up. “He had slipped and got himself injured. He was not beaten up,’ said the officer. The boy was taken to a doctor on Saturday. District collector has sought a report on the incident.

“The boy is scared and is not revealing how he got injured. We are taking him into confidence and trying to make him speak up. We are also recording statement of employees at the foster home,” said Raheesa, a member of the Juvenile Justice Board.

The foster home officials are provided with Rs 1,600 for food and Rs 150 per children for basic needs such as soap, shoes and clothes. It had come up during inspection that the living conditions were found to be unsatisfactory with no washrooms, bedding and new clothes. Two TV sets in the home were lying out of order. The members also said the food served to these kids were not according to the menu. And complaints of insects in food were also reported.

The committee members revealed that juvenile offenders and orphans, who are meant to live separately, to avoid influence, were found living together. No counselling has been provided to them in the past couple of months as the official responsible for this is busy taking care of other things.”

Teen beaten up in Alwar’s foster home[Times of India 7/6/14 by Rajendra Sharma]

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