The state government is launching a foster care scheme under which citizens can parent children from state-run child care institutions for a limited period of one to three years. The scheme is being implemented as a pilot project in five districts including Mumbai suburban. The government has invited applications from interested parents.

Maharashtra has about 450 government-run institutes that house thousands of children who are either orphaned or whose parents are unable to raise them. Children living in these child-care institutions and between the ages of 7 to 18 may be placed with families under the foster care scheme.

“The basic principle of the Juvenile Justice Act is non-institutional parenting of children. Besides the adoption scheme, this is an opportunity for the children to live with the unrelated families albeit for a limited period. Their stay in the families will help them their qualitative growth,” said Manisha Birasis, program manager of the integrated child protection scheme and assistant commissioner, department of women and child development.

Birasis said district-level committees comprising district women and child welfare officers, child protection officers, members of the child welfare committee and protection officers of non-institutional care will look into the background of the family who apply to foster children. “There will be strict monitoring every 15-30 days by us with the help of interaction with the principals of the schools, neighbours of the family and with the child itself. Children in conflict with the law, those living in observation homes and those in the age group of zero to six years are excluded from the scheme. The first category is excluded for security reasons, while children younger than six years have prospects of permanent adoption, which is our top priority. Children from child care institutes and in the age group of six-18 years are being placed in this scheme, among which our first preference will be the children between six-10 years,” she said.

Explaining the difference between adoption and foster care, Birasis said adoption gives parents the rights of biological parents while foster care is temporary and the parents have no legal rights over the child.

Chandigarh police collected the DNA samples of two rescued babies and their actual parents to establish their relationship. The samples were collected at GMSH-16 and then sent for DNA profiling to CFSL in Sector 36. Two policemen had procured the child from an alleged child trafficking gang after paying money.

Five members of the gang, including three women and two men, are in police custody. While the parents of the rescued children have recorded their statements before a local court. Sources said, the parents have claimed that the gang members, including two ASHA workers, had misguided them about their children immediately after the birth. One of the parents, sources said, claimed in her statement that ASHA worker, Sarabjeet Kaur, misguided them that she gave the birth to twins and one of them was born dead. The statement further recorded that Sarabjeet Kaur had taken away the other child claiming that the condition of the child was not good and she would take the child for further medical checkup.

The five members of the gang in police custody include two ASHA workers, one Sector 45-based woman, Bhawna, and two men including a Punjab police constable. They were arrested with a kidnapped child near Airport light point on August 3. They came to Chandigarh to sell the male child for Rs four lakh. Police had negotiated a deal with the gang through a decoy customer.

A police officer said, “We traced the parents of the male child at Malerkotla in Sangrur. Later, a girl was also rescued, following the disclosure of the gang members. The girl had been sold to a couple for Rs one lakh. We also traced the parents of the girl child. Parents of both the children recorded their statements before the magistrate. The DNA samples of the children and parents were collected. Indeed, poverty is also one of the reasons behind this racket. Police department is considering legal action against the couple who had paid money to the accused for procuring the girl child, a fortnight back. The result of the DNA samples will come after at least one month. The accused searched for childless couples, approached them, negotiated and sold the children.”

The two ASHA workers have been identified as Sarabjeet Kaur of Sangrur and Kuldeep Kaur of Patiala district. The other accused Bhawna is from Punjab and lives at a rented accommodation in Sector 45, Chandigarh. Police said the Punjab police constable held in the case, Amarjeet Singh, is a resident of Kharar in Mohali. Another accused, Mandeep Singh of Ludhiana, is the brother of accused Sarabjeet Kaur.

Four children; 13-year-old Karanbir Singh, 11-year-old Gurpreet Singh, nine-year-old Arshpreet Singh, and seven-year-old Sandeep Singh lost their

parents recently. Now actor Sonu Sood has decided to adopt them and take care of their education.

HIGHLIGHTS

Tarn Taran: Actor Sonu Sood who won accolades by helping the needy and the poor during the lockdown has pledged his support to four orphans of Punjab.

These children lost their father in the Punjab hooch tragedy. The mother passed away soon after.

A total of 11 children have been surrendered to special adoption agencies in Madurai district during the COVID-19 lockdown since March 2020.

Representatives from the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and the adoption agencies say that the numbers were higher compared to previous year.

Chairman of CWC, Madurai district, K. Vijayasaravanan, says that a major reason cited by parents when they surrender children was loss of livelihood due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Giving an instance, he said that one of the children admitted to a adoption agency was a four-day-old girl child who was surrendered by her parents at the primary health centre in T. Ramanathapuram which is part of Elumalai block on Thursday. The parents said they already had girl children to look after.

According to a data accessed by The Hindu, the children surrendered to the two special adoption agencies in the district- Grace Kennett Hospital and Claretian Mercy Home- include seven girls and four boys.

Brave New World !!!!!

This text by Juan Branco, transmitted by Jean-Claude Bourret on his Facebook page, shows how we are all cheated, manipulated, misinformed:

Chronicles of the Oligarchy

I discovered today that the most powerful senior official in France, Marc Guillaume, Secretary General of the Government, debarred for sexism and authoritarianism, after having rained and shined for five years on the administration of our country , is married to the advertising director at Louis Vuitton, owned by Bernard Arnault.

This reminds me that Christophe Girard, deputy mayor in charge of culture in Paris, Fabiusien disembarked because of support for an assumed pedophile, is an employee of LVMH, owned by Bernard Arnault.

The UT police today constituted an SIT to probe the child trafficking racket busted recently.

The SIT will be headed by the ASP (South) and has two Inspectors (SHOs of police stations in Sector 36 and 31), three Sub-Inspectors and an ASI as the members.

Infant ill, Suspects told his mother

The mother of the two-day-old boy stated that one of the suspects, Sarabjit Kaur, took her son on the pretext of getting him treated.

“The suspect had told the mother that the child was unwell and needed to be treated,” said a source.

Forty children from orphanages in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur, Amaravati and Palghar are set to get foster families. As part

of an experimental scheme initiated by the state government, those wanting to be foster parents can register online with

the Women and Child Welfare (WCF) Commissionerate (https://wcdcommpune.org), which is located in Pune.

After a scrutiny of family backgrounds and a rigorous selection process by the District Child Protection Unit, these

families will get Rs 2,000 per month from the government to ensure the protection and rehabilitation of orphaned

VISAKHAPATNAM: Investigation into the child trafficking case linked to

Universal Srusti Hospital has taken a twist in course of the weekend.

Police now suspect a link between the accused and Padmaja Hospital at

Seethammadhara. Police and medical teams searched the hospital on

Saturday night and seized some documents.

VISAKHAPATNAM: The police probing the child trafficking case against Universal Srushti Fertility and Research Centre, filed a petition in the court seeking custody of the accused, including hospital MD P Namrata, who are in judicial custody. She is undergoing treatment in King George Hospital now.

Meanwhile, the police teams with the help of revenue and police officials, are analysing the records and hard disks seized from the hospital during the raids. The police are investigating into 56 deliveries that were recorded in the hospital to find out whether there are any other illegal child trafficking.

According to sources, the surrogacy fraud committed by the hospital management came to light in Hyderabad, when a couple complained to Gopalapuram police that they were cheated by it. The couple said they visited the fertility centre in Secunderabad on November 11, 2019 with regard to surrogacy.

They stated that they paid Rs 10 lakh to the hospital MD and they are scheduled to give the baby in October. Meanwhile, as cases against the hospital were reported, they lodged a complaint with the police against the management.

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Millions of children worldwide are brought up in institutional care settings rather than in families. These institutions vary greatly both in terms of their organisational principles and structure, and in terms of the quality of care provided. Although institutions are universally recognised as providing suboptimal caregiving environments, consensus is still needed on how to interpret the evidence relating to the size, range, and persistence of the effect of institutional care on the development and wellbeing of children. This absence of consensus has led to disagreement as to whether policy should focus on eliminating, transforming, or improving institutions.

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