The sisters- Rani and Sushma used to live in the Children National Institute Orphanage in Uttar Pradesh when they were taken to Denmark by a Danish woman in 1962. They were thrilled to visit their childhood abode and had a fun time with the children at the institute.

Prayagraj: Back in 1962, two sisters from the Children National Institute orphanage were adopted by a Danish woman. Almost 62 years later, the duo- Rani and Sushma returned home in India and reminisced their sweet childhood here.

Their childhood memories were refreshed when they reached the Children National Institute Orphanage on April 2, after 62 years. Recalling where they lived, both of them visited every corner of the campus in their two-day trip to their childhood abode. They were also accompanied to the market for shopping, and showered with enormous gifts.

The duo also went around on a tour of the philosophical places of the city. 'They were eagerly waiting to come to Prayagraj for years. Despite growing up there, this orphanage in Prayagraj holds a special place for them. They often spoke of the memories they created here but regretted the fact that they could not be back here in all these years.

However, in March, they planned to visit India. They travelled to Delhi from Denmark and then went straight to the Swaraj Bhawan complex and visited the Children's National Institute, where they had spent a great chunk of their childhood.

Inconsistent jurisprudence related to adoption for Muslim couples renders parents and the young rudderless. These circumstances are enabled by a backward looking and rigid politics of the Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB).On March 4, 2024, Live Law published a report of the Supreme Court rendering an important judgment in a custody matter in which both the parties were Muslims. What made this March 4 verdict quite distinct and path breaking? The SC didn't just reiterate the jurisprudence in matters of custody while highlighting the inconsistencies of the Orissa HC order, but also called out the flaw of court in framing the issue erroneously.In this article, the author engages with some case law on the subject to show how inconsistency creeps into judgments and what the extant jurisprudence on the matter is.

Legal certainty is one of the cardinal guarantors of the rule of law. However, when judgments end up losing sight of legal certainty, and infirmities and inconsistencies creep into jurisprudence set by constitutional courts — either by way of framing of issues or through analysis—it is the rule of law that gets undermined. The evolving jurisprudence of child’s custody, in cases where both the parties are Muslims is one such domain wherein one can witness such glaring legal uncertainty.

On March 4, 2024, the Supreme Court in Shazia Aman Khan & Ors vs The State of Orissa & Others (hereinafter ‘Shazia’) while setting aside an order passed by the Orissa High Court altering the custody of a minor girl child observed that “she cannot be treated as a chattel at the age of 14 years”. This is a very important and much needed judgment in terms of setting the record straight on jurisprudence on custody between Muslim parties in India.

In Shazia, the Supreme Court essentially made two important points. Firstly, unlike the Orissa High Court which observed that “in absence of adoption, the custody of the minor child is liable to be termed as illegal detention”, the Supreme Court did not just make the fine distinction between adoption, custody, and guardianship, but also noted that the three concepts (or definitions) are neither same nor interchangeable.

Secondly, in matters of custody, besides welfare, the Apex Court underscored, “Stability of the child is also of paramount consideration”. These two observations by the Apex Court, significantly, didn’t just further the principles of natural justice, but are also in conformity with the mandate of and jurisprudence under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. The glaring error that the Supreme Court identified in the High Court order, might have occurred on two counts. This could be either due to a misreading of these legal concepts (adoption, custody and guardianship) and their relationship to the stance of the Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB) or may have been rendered in sheer haste in keenly framing the issue.

Erik Staal (59) has recently been called Redering again: the surname he was given by his biological mother. Erik was adopted as a child via the transition home Moederheil in Breda. And that adoption was annulled by the judge last week. That is quite unique at his age: it only happens once a year. Still, Erik had no choice: "It is a bizarre situation that you can be an orphan in the eyes of the law but still sit next to your mother."

Erik's mother José de Vos (75) gave her son Erik up for adoption in the 1960s at the Moederheil maternity clinic. She did so under great pressure, but that happened more often in those days. José was not married and an unmarried woman who had a child was a disgrace to the entire family.

At a later age, Erik was 46, he went looking for his mother. When children get to know their biological parent at a later age, the contact is sometimes difficult and distant. There is too little in common. But with Erik and José it went more than well. They feel a deep bond with each other and see each other every Thursday.

“Why didn't I do it sooner?”

For years Erik had been thinking about undoing his adoption. He had no good contact with his adoptive parents and they have since passed away. So Erik went to court, with José at his side.

Patna: Two girls, rescued from Patna and Rajendra Nagar railway stations when they were barely a few months old, were adopted by two couples — a Dubai-based and another one from Kerala — in the presence of Patna district magistrate (DM) Shirshat Kapil Ashok here on Tuesday. The adoption took place as per the recommendations of the Adoption Guide (2022) issued by the Union ministry of women and child development.

The girl adopted by the Dubai couple was rescued at Patna Junction platform 1 when she was just a month old, while the other was found deserted at Rajendra Nagar Railway Station when she was just nine months old. Both the girls were staying at District Child Protection Unit-operated Arunodaya, a special adoption institute in Patna.

Assistant director of DCPU, Uday Kumar Jha, said that nowadays couples were more interested in adopting a girl child rather than a boy. “Couples are even ready to wait for two to three years to adopt a girl child. In the last five years, 92 children were adopted, including 61 girls,” he said.

Earlier, children could be adopted only through family courts, therefore in a bid to make the procedures simple, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, was amended and henceforth the DM was authorised to issue orders relating to adoption.

Just over 200 adoptions were finalised in Australia last year - an all time low and dramatic decline since reporting began more than 50 years ago.

The Australian government started recording adoptions in 1968-1969.

The number of children adopted increased from 6773 in the first year to a peak of 9798 in 1971-1972.

But the latest data in a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows a combined 201 domestic and inter-country adoptions were recorded in 2022-2023, a decline of 98 per cent since the early 1970s peak.

Over the last five years the number of adoptions has decreased from 330 to 201.

Just over 200 adoptions were finalised in Australia last year - an all time low and dramatic decline since reporting began more than 50 years ago.

The Australian government started recording adoptions in 1968-1969.

The number of children adopted increased from 6773 in the first year to a peak of 9798 in 1971-1972.

But the latest data in a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows a combined 201 domestic and inter-country adoptions were recorded in 2022-2023, a decline of 98 per cent since the early 1970s peak.

Over the last five years the number of adoptions has decreased from 330 to 201.

The accused in the case were arrested after the victim’s foster mother lodged a complaint against them. The court ruled that the ‘act of the accused’ amounted to ‘betrayal of faith in humanity’.

A court in Gujarat’s Surat on Monday convicted and sentenced a man, his brother and his two nephews to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment for raping the man’s adopted daughter, a minor. The court also directed that a compensation of Rs 2.50 lakh be awarded to the victim.

The special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act court said in its order that the accused were family members and their role was to save and protect the child but “in this case, the protector became predator”.

“The victim is only 13 years and one should imagine the mental condition of the victim. The accused are none other than her family members like her father (foster), her uncle and her cousin brothers, who took advantage of her adopted child and raped her. In every culture, father primarily has the role of a protector, provider and disciplinarian, while in this case the protector became predator. The act of the accused amounts to betrayal of faith in humanity,” Judge S N Solanki observed in the order.

NEW DELHI: In a promising trend, adoptions have once again reached pre-pandemic numbers. Latest govt data show that 4,009 children were adopted between April 2023 to March 2024 by families in India and abroad. The last time the number of adoptions (in-country and inter-country) crossed 4,000 was in 2018-19 when it touched 4,027. Also, in-country adoptions at 3,560 are the highest since 2015-16.

In 2022-23, the total number of adoptions stood at 3,441, up from 3,405 in the previous financial year. Data collated by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), under the ministry of women and child development, show that of the 4,009 adoptions in 2023-24, 449 were inter-country adoptions.



This year, CARA has expanded the ambit of adoption to include the concept of ‘foster adoption’ as a category. So far 10 children have been placed under foster adoption across the country, in keeping with the Adoption Regulations 2022. Moreover, CARA has also been focusing on expediting cases of relatives keen on taking an orphaned child in their family or prospective parents waiting to adopt their step children.

As many as 412 children, adopted under in-country adoptions, figure in the category of ‘relative and step adoption’. The break-up of the data on domestic adoptions shows that relatives and step parents in India adopted 311 and 101 children respectively. Relatives (NRI/OCI) abroad adopted 18 children.

The break-up of 3,560 in-country adoptions shows that as many as 3,081 were in the category of ‘orphan, abandoned and surrendered (OAS)’ children who were adopted within the country by resident Indians and 57 were adopted by NRIs. In 2022-23, domestic adoptions stood at 3,010 and this number was 2,991 in 2021-22.

In the inter-country adoption category, 295 OAS children were adopted by foreigners and 91 by overseas citizens of India (OCI). Also 42 children were adopted by NRI and OCI parents under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act.

Officials highlight that one of the key factors contributing to the increase in adoptions during the year 2023-24 can be attributed to the focus on promoting adoption within the country and in the child’s own socio-cultural milieu as laid out in the adoption regulations notified in 2022 and Juvenile Justice Act as amended in 2021. One of the key shifts under the law was that the power to pass an adoption order was given to the district magistrate instead of the court. The officials also point to the simplification of the adoption process to cut down delays from the stage of making the child legally free for adoption to the reducing the time for the referral and matching process for children in the adoption pool with prospective adoptive parents.

Meanwhile, even as CARA is taking these measures to cut down delays in the adoption process there continues to be a big gap in the number of parents waiting to adopt and the children available in the adoption pool. CARA’s dashboard as of Monday shows that 33,809 prospective adoptive parents registered whereas the number of children in the pool remains low at a little over 2,141 children and of these 731 are in ‘normal category’ and 1,410 in ‘special needs’. Of the PAPs registered, over 31800 are resident Indians registered for adopting a child in the “orphan, abandoned and surrendered” category and a little over a 1000 are there to adopt in the “relative/step parent” category.

Discussed in this essay:

Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala, by Rachel Nolan. Harvard University Press. 320 pages. $35.

In May 1982, Blanca Luz López entrusted her son, a toddler, to a full-time caretaker in a poor neighborhood of Guatemala City. This was a common arrangement for working mothers, like López, whose long hours prevented them from assuming themselves the responsibilities of parenting. She visited her son when she could, and then, one day that next February, he wasn’t there. The caretaker said she had sent the boy elsewhere “for his greater safety,” and gave López an address. López went to the house, and a woman there told her that the boy would be returned to her at a piñata party so that he could be given a proper goodbye.

When López and four other people—three adults and a child—arrived for the party, they were shown in, offered a bottle of liquor, and then set upon by a group of attackers with knives. All four adults, including López, were murdered, and the child was kidnapped. The assailants had already shuttled López’s son out of the country, and the other child was never seen again. To this day, neither has been found.

Before Guatemala outlawed foreign adoptions in 2007, one in a hundred children born there was adopted internationally. The country was second only to China in the number of children being sent abroad, yet Guatemala had a population of about thirteen and a half million people, roughly one one-hundredth of China’s. Rachel Nolan, in her detailed and heartrending first book, Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala, uses years of research to show the way that a country destabilized by war can invite merciless profiteers to break apart families such as López’s and allow others overseas to reconfigure them according to their own desires. For the three decades between 1977 and 2007, Guatemala allowed lawyers to match children with foreign families, with minimal oversight from a court. What happened in Guatemala, along with similar scandals in Romania, South Korea, and Peru, inspired the creation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption in 1993. The treaty now governs the way more than a hundred countries conduct adoption across national borders.

BENGALURU: Popular social media influencer and former Big Boss contestant, Sonu Srinivas Gowda, 29, made it to the headlines again, but this time for her arrest following the illegal adoption of a girl child. Sonu Gowda was arrested by Byadarahalli police in Bengaluru under the Juvenile Justice Act (Care and Protection of Children), 2015, after a complaint was filed by an official from the Women and Child Development Department, accusing her of not adhering to the adoption protocol.

Sonu, who has over one million followers on social media, had been sharing videos featuring the 8-year-old girl for several weeks. While the influencer maintained that she had legally adopted the child from her parents in Raichur, the complainant, Geeta J, Legal-cum-Probation Officer (LPO), District Child Protection Unit, said the adoption was done illegally, and several norms, such as revealing the identity of the adopted child, were violated in the process. The complainant emphasised the adoption procedures outlined by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) which protects children’s rights and privacy.

The FIR mentioned that Sonu had disclosed the child’s identity and neglected to enrol her in school, despite it being March, the month of examinations. The FIR also raised suspicions that the child, who was with Sonu for about 41 days, might have been sold as the woman alleged that she had compensated the child’s parents “in kind”. Additionally, the complainant cited the legal provision violated by Sonu, which mandates a 25-year age gap between the child and the adopter.

During interrogation, Sonu admitted that she had not followed the official procedure and had got the child nearly a month ago. She mentioned that she was planning to complete it but due to her lack of knowledge about the official procedure, the legal procedure got delayed.

Adoption laws