As many as 445 children have found a new life through inter-country adoptions this year.

Representational image

Representational image

Hyderabad: Couples from the US, Italy and Spain have adopted 50 per cent of children given in inter-country adoptions over a five year period. Girl children continue to be more preferred. Since 2013, the rate of adoption by couples in the three countries, France, the UAE, Canada and the UK have seen an increase. In 2013-14, US families adopted over 160 Indian children which dipped to 138 but rose to 222 and 213 in the subsequent years and 203 so far in 2018.

Similarly, Spanish couples adopted 43 Indian children in 2013, the numbers rising to 56 and 64 in the subsequent years. The number then fell to 61 but Spanish couples have adopted 66 children so far this year. As many as 445 children have found a new life through inter-country adoptions this year.

Child welfare committees have been instructed to inspect foster homes every month for the first three months and then after every six months, NCPCR said, amid a rise in incidents of sexual abuse of children at child care institutions.

The National Commission For Protection of Child Rights has come up with a user guide in collaboration with Centre Of Excellence in Alternative Care (India) to boost foster care system in the country.

The manual is aimed at giving a clear understanding of what foster families are and ways to benefit children who are under institutional care, according to an NCPCR official.

"India faces a greater challenge in deinstitutionalisation because of its size, geography, economy and the fact that foster care is a fairly recent development. It is therefore important to develop a model of foster care that works for India," the official said.

The guidebook comes in the backdrop of reports of sexual abuse of children at child care institutions across the country.

Farmer Budu Kandir with his daughter Sarita (right) and Mangra at a Ranchi hospital on Saturday. (Prashant Mitra)

Ranchi: For a month-and-a-half, a Khunti farmer is chasing authorities to get back his 18-month-old son who went missing after 22 babies were shifted from a Missionaries of Charity-run shelter in the wake of a baby-sale-for-adoption controversy that rocked the state capital in July.

After the adoption racket came to light at Ranchi's Nirmal Hriday, the state child welfare committee ordered the shifting of all babies from Shishu Bhavan. Of 22 babies there, 12 were shifted to Khunti's Sahyog Village, a child care shelter run by an NGO.

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This is the concluding column in a three-part series on child trafficking in India. Also read parts one and two.

“What is to be done? It makes us feel very sad that children are treated only as numbers. They too have a soul, they too have heart. How long can we continue like this? It is very disturbing,” Justice Madan Lokur observed during a Supreme Court hearing in August 2018. “If the provisions of the law were being implemented in letter and spirit, then child abuse incidents like those in Muzaffarpur and Deoria would not have happened,” he observed.

Justice Lokar was responding to information presented by amicus curiae Aparna Bhat on discrepancies between two government-commissioned surveys conducted a year apart, which indicated that over two lakh children residing in child care homes were now “missing”.

A 2016-17 survey, commissioned by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, indicated that 4.73 lakh children resided in care homes nationwide. However, the number came down to 2.61 lakh children in the data submitted by the Centre before the Supreme Court in March 2018.

The survey also pointed out that of the 9,589 childcare institutions across the country, 1,596 were overcrowded. The children who lived in these homes were subjected to corporal punishment and other kinds of abuse. The court then asked Ministry officials present how many more children were missing in the country, “besides these two lakh”.

‘Nagaland stepping out of customary to legal adoption’

Advisor, Department of Social Welfare, Child Services, Noke Konyak launching the video on adoption and Radio Jingles on Friday. (Morung Photo)

Department of Social Welfare, Child Services launches video and Radio Jingles on legal adoption

Our Correspondent

Kohima | August 31

Illustration: J.A. Premkumar.

Illustration: J.A. Premkumar.

50 destitute children were forced to sleep 10 to a bed, fed just two meagre meals

Fifty children, many of them six years or younger, were rescued from an illegal orphanage-cum-school in Pasighat town of Arunachal Pradesh.

Though the illegal home in a ramshackle bamboo-and-thatch structure had been in operation since February this year, it was only after former employees complained to the East Siang district’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC) last month that its presence was noted by authorities.

Image for representational purpose only.By Preeja PrasadExpress News Service

BENGALURU: According to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), there are only 40 children registered for adoption in the city, but 202 couples waiting to bring a child home. Speaking to City Express, these future parents share their tiresome journeys of waiting and hoping.

For Sheela Bhatt (name changed) and her husband, the journey to adopt a child has been long and tiresome. A business analyst by profession, Sheela decided to take a break this year and focus on her goal of legally adopting a girl child.

Unfortunately, with the delay in the procedure and legal formalities that has already taken two-and-a-half-years, Sheela is almost on the verge of giving up and going back to work. "We've had a social worker come in and file a home study report, but the wait got to us, especially when there is no support from other members of the family," she says. "We've been longing for a child forever," she adds.

With a preference for a child under the age of two, Sheela and her husband are now in a state of confusion, as the girl they had seen in pictures is now over the preferred age. A similar situation had happened with Uma Shankar (name changed), but she finally was able to adopt a child last week after two-and-a-half years of waiting, but court proceedings are yet to be completed. "Yes, the wait is a big struggle, it would be easier if the system did not push away genuine parents seeking to give a home to a child," she says, adding that this may prevent prospective adoptive parents from backing out.