They are the abandoned of the earth. Each year, an incredible 11.5 lakh Indian babies are dumped like human garbage in the backstreets and by-lanes of the country. Unwanted and unloved, their future extends into a long and dark tunnel with just one, barely discernible glimmer of hope at its end-adoption.
They are the abandoned of the earth. Each year, an incredible 11.5 lakh Indian babies are dumped like human garbage in the backstreets and by-lanes of the country. Unwanted and unloved, their future extends into a long and dark tunnel with just one, barely discernible glimmer of hope at its end - adoption.
But last month, even that faint glimmer was abruptly, if temporarily, snuffed out following grossly exaggerated reports in the Daily Mail, a London daily, that a Calcutta-based adoption agency was selling babies outside the country. Though the report was later refuted, the damage had been done. Suddenly, adoption had become a bad word and adoption agencies exposed to the harsh glare of suspicion and even hostility.
In the sparkling clean clinic of the International Mission of Hope, the agency mentioned in the Mail report, four-month-old Baisakhi hovers at the edge of death. She suffers from a serious ailment that requires open heart surgery. Cherie Clark, executive director of the mission, had arranged for an American family in Oregon to adopt the baby and also arrange to have the necessary surgery performed.
But by last fortnight, hopes of Baisakhi making the life-saving trip had receded drastically after the mission found itself the target of a reluctant governmental inquiry and Indian authorities have suddenly become chary of permitting babies to leave the country.
Gibi's passport had the name Shepherd, because Erlene was to have adopted her/ Credit: Dr. Michelle Harrison