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There is no adoption agency in Tiruchi

Abandoned children are being sent to other districts

In the absence of adoption agency in Tiruchi, abandoned children are being sent to other districts where organisations comply with CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority) guidelines.

According to official sources, the necessity to send children to other districts has arisen since the SOC-SEAD has not renewed its licence that had lapsed during 2016.

No other agency has come forward for adopting children, District Child Protection Officer Geetha said. SOC-SEAD sources said that they have fulfilled all norms but are yet to be granted the licence.

The Adoption Guidelines 2017 framed by CARA envisages increase in time period available to domestic Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAP) for matching and acceptance, after reserving the child referred, from 20 days to 15 days.

Couples from US, Spain, Italy lead in inter-country adoptions

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.

CWC asked to conduct regular inspection of foster homes: NCPCR

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.

Baby 'mix-up' blot on shelter

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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Child trafficking in India: Over two lakh children missing, but who's counting the forgotten ones?

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’

‘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

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Kohima | August 31

Whistleblowers reveal horrific conditions at Arunachal orphanage

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.