New Delhi: The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has said that there was no need to repeal personal law regarding adoption among Hindus as the “object and purpose” of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA) and Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act is different.

Chief Executive Officer of CARA, Lt Col Deepak Kumar said, “There was no problem with the personal law legislation but it needs stricter monitoring mechanism to avoid child trafficking and other such related cases.”

“Hindu mythology talked about 'beta ho gaya toh vansh ko aage badhayega (If a boy is born, he’ll take forward the lineage)'. The act gives parents an opportunity of a lineage. This does not mean that the act should be repealed. If one is a Hindu and wants to give up their child for adoption, then relying on this act is fine. The problem comes, when a middleman enters the picture. Children are sold off and trafficked. The problem is implementation and not the law,” said Kumar.

The CEO’s statement comes close on the heels of reports that the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) is mulling over a proposal to initiate amendments in HAMA. The move is being mulled to repeal the adoption provisions under the Hindu law as it works parallel to the JJ act, which was a common law.

“This is a red alert for the ministry. There cannot be two parallel systems, as it makes it very difficult to check instances of child trafficking. The adoption provisions under HAMA need to be repealed so that adoptions happen only through the JJ Act. We will be moving a proposal to that effect before the Cabinet soon,” said the report which quoted WCD Minister, Maneka Gandhi.

By Archana More, Pune Mirror | Updated: Nov 7, 2017, 09.51 AM IST

Minor made to work as domestic help rescued from Nanded City

12-year-old girl from Solapur forced into labour for a year by man claiming to be advisor to one Bachpan Bachav Samiti; cops have booked Deshmukh after activists took the child away

Child labour flourishing under the name of 'domestic help' has come to the fore in the city, this time, ironically, at the home of an advisor to a group that claims to advocate against this very crime. In the latest development, a 12-year-old girl was rescued from a home in Nanded City, Sinhagad Road, after city-based activists received a tipoff that a minor had been working for many days at the Lalit building.

On Sunday, members of NGO Sakhee laid a trap and rescued the girl from the house in question, which belongs to an advisor on the Bachpan Bachav Samiti, Abhijitraje Deshmukh, who also happens to be state president of the All India Anti-Corruption Committee (AIACC). According to Sakhee, this is the first case in which a minor being used as domestic help has been rescued in Pune city.

Pune: Members of a non-government organization, Sakhee, and the Haveli police on Sunday rescued a 12-year-old girl from the clutches of a man, forcing her to work at his Sinhagad Road residence as a domestic help.

A team headed by advocate Anjali Pawar, who is leading the non-government organization (NGO), rescued the girl on Sunday afternoon from an upscale housing complex on Sinhagad Road. The girl from Barshi in Solapur district was being tortured by her employer from May 2016.

The suspect and his wife used to beat up the girl regularly. She cried loudly every day, Pawar told TOI. The girl was forced to cook food, wash clothes and take care of children, Pawar said.

A source in the Haveli police said a case had been registered against the employer of the child. The suspect and his family members have fled the scene.

Pawar said the NGO members had kept a watch on the house from June. After a few days, it was confirmed that the family members were inflicting torture and injuries to her.

HIGHLIGHTS

Mark Madappan Nielsen, 45, underwent nightmarish experiences before he found a home and benevolent parents in Denmark

The family has come to Madurai on one-year visa to narrow down their search around Coimbatore and Trichy

Mark Madappan NielsenMark Madappan Nielsen

MADURAI: At the age of 45, Mark Madappan Nielsen has seen the world enough and witnessed both good and evil. A Danish citizen, Mark now is searching for his biological parents after he was given in adoption to a family in Denmark by an illegal orphanage in Delhi.

Abandoned by their parents, 77 newborns have got a fresh shot at life courtesy a government scheme that allows people to put unwanted infants in cradles installed at hospitals across the state.

“Seventy-seven newborn babies, including 47 girl children, who were abandoned just after their birth and would have died have been saved in Rajasthan in the period March 2016 to October 2017,” Devendra Agarwal, state advisor to the government of Rajasthan for Aashray Paalna Sthal Yojana, said.

Chief minister Vasundhara Raje announced, in her 2015-16 budget speech, the Aashray Paalna Sthal Yojana to install cradles at all the government medical colleges, district hospitals, sub-district hospitals and satellite hospitals. At present, 68 such cradles are functional across state.

There had been instances in the past when unwanted infants were thrown away in dustbins, bushes, rivers, dirty ponds, slimes, wells where they died an untimely death. Also, babies were often abandoned at bus stands, railway stations or other such places where they would end up in the wrong hands. It was with a motive to curb such incidents that the government came up with the cradle scheme.

“Rajasthan is the first state to bring about the concept of Paalna Sthal in such a manner at all the government hospitals. Rajasthan is the only state to give the ‘Right to Survive and Prosper’ to all the (so called) unwanted newborns,” Agarwal said.

#NotYourRescueProject: How a white middle-class academic masqueraded as the women he trafficked and pimped

Julie Bindel reveals that the “sex worker led” hashtag campaign #NotYourRescueProject was actually created Dr John Davies, masquerading as one of the women he pimped and trafficked.

NOVEMBER 2, 2017 by JULIE BINDEL 0

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SHARES

35 US-born children adopted by Irish families

The adoptions have taken place in the last four years.

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Image: Shutterstock/Kozak_O_O

By some estimates, India is home to between 20 and 30 million orphaned children, the overwhelming majority of whom are orphaned by abandonment, rather than because of the death of their parents.

Lost in a sea of some 400 million children – the largest child population in the world – the outlook is bleak for those left behind. Crippling poverty and poor literacy rates form an unforgiving couple, leading to a vicious circle of child labour, child trafficking and systemic abuse.

Yet, even as India’s population continues to skyrocket, and adoption becomes more accepted within its borders, adoption rates in India have plummeted over the last 7 years.

Over the same period, almost under the radar, the Australian government has upheld a ban on the adoption of children from India, amid a cloud of bureaucratic smoke and mirrors that continues to frustrate prospective adoptive parents and denies some of the world’s most desperate children the chance of a new beginning.

It’s now been seven years since Australia suspended its adoption program with India, when the then Attorney-General placed a hold on applications to India, purportedly in response to ongoing investigations into illegal adoptions and child trafficking.

7 Minutes to Live: Crisis in the child protective service courts

Family court judge worried about foster care bill

Law to shelter child sex trafficking victims could strain resources

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Nearly 4,000 children are waiting to be adopted in Texas, a statistic advocates are highlighting in November for National Adoption Month.

About 30 children spent the night in a Child Protective Services office in Travis County because they didn’t have a place to go. Travis County Judge Darlene Byrne said many children are waiting up to two years to find a place with a family, and that the need for foster families is always present. As of Wednesday in Austin, 119 children were waiting for foster homes.

THE UT social welfare department has been flooded with queries regarding adoption of the newborn baby of the 10-year-old rape victim. Though parents willing to adopt the child have to apply at the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), the UT social welfare department has come to know that 136 people from the region here are on the waiting list.

An official of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) said the 60-day reconsideration period which is given to the family is already over and the child is now legally free for adoption. The reconsideration period is the time given to the parents to rethink and come back to take the child. If they do not, then after a period of two months, the child is declared legally free for adoption.

Nishu Singhal, director of the social welfare department, said they could not disclose any such details and everything was being operated through the national portal. Sources said that among those willing to adopt the child, approximately half-a-dozen are NRIs and some gazetted officers. The rape victim delivered a girl in August this year.

CWC members have been receiving calls from people, who do not know that the adoption process is now regulated through CARA. “People don’t know that adoption isn’t easy now. So, they are being advised to apply through CARA. We really don’t know how much time the adoption process would take, may be even six months,” said a senior CWC official.

A Government of India team would be carrying out door-to-door verification of the families that have applied and would even see the economical status of the applicants. Ever since the baby was born, she has been at Ashiana, a children’s home at Sector 15. Ashiana is home to over 100 children, up to 18 years of age, who had either been abandoned or orphans or are victims of any crime. At present, there are 105 children at Ashiana.