Centre issued model guidelines on foster care in 2016, Foster Care, Foster Care Homes, Foster Care Rules notified in 2014 under the state Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2000 and the JJ Rules, 2011, Indian Express Sunday Special

When she joined the family, Lilliput was a quiet child, guarded, even a bit stubborn, often picking up fights with the domestic help, and scared of the family dog Scooby. (Express Photo by Mahim Pratap Singh)

It’s a relaxed Saturday morning for nine-year-old Lilliput. It’s an off day at school, the usually harsh Rajasthan sun is calm behind an overcast sky, and the grey Aravalis that surround her home are a lush green from the first monsoon showers. “Cycle chalana sabse achcha lagta hai (I love cycling the most),” she says, pedalling down the street outside her foster home at Chitrakoot Nagar on the outskirts of Udaipur, the city of lakes.

“Uff, iski chain nikal gayi (the cycle chain has come off),” she says softly, her smile now turned upside down, much like the sad emoji, as she drags the small bike with support wheels inside the house. Lilliput, as her new family calls her affectionately, is one of the first children to be taken into foster care after the Centre issued model guidelines on foster care in 2016.

In 2008, the police had found her in Chittorgarh. An unclaimed child born to a victim of sexual assault, she was barely a month old then. She spent nine years in a care home, before being recently brought in by a 52-year-old Air-India duty manager and her 11-year-old daughter, into their home.

Bhopal: The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has taken cognizance of inter state child trafficking racket case that was busted a few months ago in Alirajpur. In its letter, the commission has stated that the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding a multi- state child sale racket from its partner organization, Aawaj, working in Madhya Pradesh for child rights.

Travesty of justice

Aawaj members played a crucial role in uncovering the racket by acting as decoy customers while working with the police. In a strange twist however, authorities then handed over the sold children for foster care back to the same families who had bought them in the name of good bonding. The AHRC strongly condemned such an ill thought decision and demanded proper foster care for the children.

It said an effective and timely investigation into the case must also be undertaken and those found guilty must be prosecuted.

By now, the police have arrested a total 28 persons, including one doctor, four hospital staff and some of the male customers. Yet, in a strange twist and travesty of justice afterwards, the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of District Alirajpur, the nodal agency for the protection and welfare of children handed over many of the children to the very same families that have bought them.

WCD notice to adoption home where 2 infants died

At Bal Anand adoption home in Chembur. (Express: Pradip Das)

Food poisoning or milk adulteration may not have caused illnesses in children at the Bal Anand World Children Welfare orphanage, reveals a preliminary inquiry by Food and Drug Administration(FDA) into the death of two infants and hospitalisation of four others from the adoption home.

FDA officials collected 15 samples of dal, rice, milk, and other raw materials used for cooking at the Chembur-based adoption home on December 26, the day five-month-old orphan Khushi died in Zen hospital.

The next day, nine-month-old Jaydeep died in Kohinoor hospital. Four others, aged less than a year and a half, were hospitalised. Three of them required intensive care support.

Mumbai: Two children from Chembur orphanage die under mysterious circumstances

The Chembur orphanage. Pic/Rajesh Gupta

In a shocking case that came to light, two kids from a private orphanage in Chembur died under mysterious circumstances. Both the kids died on consecutive days. Six children from the facility complained of dehydration on December 25 after which they were admitted to private hospitals, where the two kids — one was five months old and one 10 months old — succumbed. Now, Govandi police have registered an accidental death report.

All the children are from Bal Anand Orphanage at Ghatla. The facility houses around 52 children (up to 18 years). DCP (Zone 6) Shahaji Umap informed, "Four kids are undergoing treatment at the moment; three are admitted at Zen Hospital and one at Kohinoor Hospital.

All the kids admitted are below the age of one year." Post-mortem was conducted at JJ Hospital, where the preliminary cause of death is considered as dehydration. In both the cases, tissues have been preserved for examination. "We are finding out what they were fed before the incident took place," a source said.

The Bombay High Court recently allowed a surrogate mother to abort her 24-week foetus, as the foetus had numerous heart abnormalities and was expected to require multiple surgeries if born. The petitioner had entered into an agreement with a Pune-based couple, for carrying their baby. She had, however, approached the court after a routine check-up and screening had revealed serious defects in the heart of the foetus. The court had then referred her matter to a medical board, consisting of doctors from the BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital, Pune. This board had confirmed that the foetus indeed had several cardiac abnormalities. Having perused this report, Justice Bharati H. Dangre had thereafter sought permission from the intended parents, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case. "It is informed by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the team of doctors who examined the surrogate mother is made aware of the risk involved and the procedure to be complied with. However, this is a peculiar case where the petitioners before the Court are also joined by the intended parent, since the child is to be conceived by applying the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). "In such circumstances, it would be appropriate to obtain the consent of the intended parents and they are appraised of the report which is tendered today," the court had directed. During the next hearing, the intended father was present in court, and consented to the abortion in view of the medical report. Allowing the petition, the court then ruled, "In such circumstances, since the expert team of doctors comprising the Heads of various departments have opined that there are multiple cardiac complication in the baby and that the pregnancy be terminated, this Court grants permission to terminate the pregnancy of the petitioner no.1."

https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/bombay-hc-allows-surrogate-mother-to-abort-24-week-foetus-with-consent-from-intended-parents-read-order-141814

In a historic move, the UN General Assembly have selected ‘Children without parental care’ as the theme for the ‘Rights of the Child’ resolution for 2019. SOS Children’s Villages has applauded UN Member States for their decision – working in partnership with a coalition of 80 NGOs to express its support.

The children’s charity has offered to share it’s expertise and learnings, gained through 70 years protecting unsupported children worldwide, to support Member States’ efforts to ensure the rights of unsupported children are upheld and fulfilled.

SOS Children’s Villages works to encourage international awareness and commitment to the rights of children without parental care worldwide. They aim to strengthen the laws protecting children, both now and in the future, thereby effecting a sustainable approach to the protection of children.

SOS Children’s Villages President Siddhartha Kaul said: “We are privileged to work with committed colleagues from across the child-rights community to bring global attention to the situation of children without parental care. As practitioners in over 130 countries we know that such focus is needed to enshrine the rights of children to quality care that meets their individual best interest.”

The announcement represents the first step towards the adoption of the resolution in the UN General Assembly in 2019. Once adopted, the non-binding resolution could become the most internationally recognised guidance for states and concerned stakeholders on protecting the rights of children without parental care or at risk of losing it.

The Government is contemplating to amend J&K Justice Juvenile (Care & Protection of Children) Act 2013 by introducing a draft Juvenile Justice Bill 2018 through Department of Social Welfare. One of the amendments relates to lowering of juvenile age from 18 years to 16 for criminal liability. According to J & K Juvenile Justice Act 1997 (unimplemented so far) juvenile means a boy or girl who has not completed age of 16 /18 years respectively. Various age tags stand prescribed by precedent or law for different people or positions to consider them for approval or negation. For voting purpose the age is gender neutral at 18 years. Legally for marriage of a boy it is 21 years and for a girl 18 years. These limits have been set after taking into consideration the physical and the mental maturity aspects of the genders to decide their representatives in constitutional/other bodies and be able to share the responsibilities of parenthood to maintain a reasonably balanced political & social order. Age for marriage is elastic as even the below 16 couple can have marital results but biology is totally different from psychology, psychiatry and brain sciences juveniles are more confronted with.

Indubitably the lowering of age will bring more juvenile offenders under the ambit of correctional mechanism. Does the mechanism deliver the intended results, suffers guarantee of certainty as jackboot policy cages body and not the mind or emotions to hold manifestation. They need schooling, psychological and in some cases psychiatric orientation which we perennially lack drastically. The amendment is feared to create more problems than solving. The lowered age will widen the catch-net dragging more and more children to trial courts from the repository of lodging houses denying them access to the reformative & the rehabilitative interventions under the Juvenile Justice Act. This may tend to harden them prematurely to argumentative and animus state. While locking up them in the prisons for adults they shall be exposed and tempted to the adult world of crime rendering them irreparable. If Government readies itself for shouldering the pain/cure of these incidental offenders efforts should be made to reach the source such tendency sprouts from. Make laws, rules & regulations to create an atmosphere that would help eliminate or reduce the youth impairment. Lowering the age will not wipe out the problem. The age should remain 18 years.

The draft bill, inter alia, proposes one more important provision of legalizing ‘ Adoption’ which was not in the earlier Act of 2013. The clause states, “A child in respect of whom an adoption order is issued by the court , shall become the child of the adoptive parents, and the adoptive parents shall become the parents of the child as if the child has been born to the adoptive parents, for all purposes, including intestacy with effect from the date on which the adoption order takes effect and on and from such date all the ties of the child in the family of his/her birth shall stand severed and replaced by those created by the adoption order in the adoptive family.” The draft further says that, “provided that any property which has vested in the adoptive child immediately before the date on which the adoption order takes effect shall continue to vest in the adopted child subject to the obligation, if any. attached to the ownership of such property including the obligations, if any , to maintain the relatives in the biological family.” The bill also provides for having ‘ Specialized Adoption Agencies’ in the state for the rehabilitation of orphans, abandoned or surrendered children through adoption and non-institutional care , ‘State Adoption Revenue Authority’ to facilitate adoption and frame regulations on adoption and related matters as may be necessary from time to time.

It is to recapitulate that in Muslims, which is the majority community in J&K , the practice of adoption is not in vogue by precept except by a thin precedent and that too within blood relations. There is a lucid pronouncement in the holy book of the Quran that adopted children cannot be named after their adoptive parents or be heir to inherit the property in a manner the biological children do. The intention is that heir-ship does not drift away from the genuine biological heirs to non heirs not entitled to it naturally. However, to accommodate destitute, orphans, needy, poor, disabled, abandoned, surrendered etc, provisions of paying zakat, oushur (1/10th) and creation of baitul-maal have been made mandatory, making testacy upto 1/3rd of the total property suggested and giving alms/charity encouraged in a number of verses in the same Book. Experiencing the fate of beggars & the beggar/leper homes , the only two observation homes, from some time past and the drug de-addictions centres now, the proposal of adoption needs to be dropped and turned down as has been done by the Law Department during 2013. The best way for redressal is through the Department of Social Welfare itself which has an age old experienced net work upto grass root levels. The department if provided with required funds in time and monitored properly with ensured accountability and transparency can surpass in achieving very well the objectives of all adoption like initiatives.

However, if Government wants to go ahead with adoption, it should be intra-state and within the blood relations. To make the process state friendly the cases must be dealt in line with Notifications No.1-L/84 dated 20-4-1927, No. 13L dated 27-6-1932, Article 6 of Constitution of J & K and Article 35A promulgated through Presidential Order of 14-5-1954 under Article 370 (1) of Constitution of India. To ensure transparency cases should be allowed only after registration, scrutiny and authentication by the appropriate Hon’ble judicial authorities after vetting these like conveyance deeds based on genuine revenue records of the state subjects. Besides, the provision for adoption should include a clause that no law/ amendment would be passed that would attack special status of J & K as apprehended. Moreover, proposal for effecting any amendments should be invariably put on outer-net to gain feedback for better outcomes. The J& K having its separate independent constitution and special status must make its own laws , sans imitations, catering to its distinct needs.

WATCH: Another delay for Abbotsford couple adopting son from Ghana

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There has been another setback for an Abbotsford couple trying to bring their adopted son to Canada from Ghana.

Kimberlee Moran and her husband Clark have been working to bring the boy to B.C. for more than three years — a process that has stalled in recent months.

On Friday, they got a letter from the Canadian government dashing their hopes once again.

AHMEDABAD: A local court refused to replace the name of a ch ..

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From Denmark to Coimbatore: It’s return of the native

By: PTI | Published: January 5, 2019 8:22 PM

A 43-year-old man, who was adopted by a Danish-couple some 40 years ago, has come here in search of his roots and biological parents.

Rajakumar, born to Ayyavu in 1975 and a resident of Thondamuthu near here, was handed over to the Blue Mountain Childrens’ Home and later adopted by the Danish couple when he was 18 months old.

A 43-year-old man, who was adopted by a Danish-couple some 40 years ago, has come here in search of his roots and biological parents. Rajakumar, born to Ayyavu in 1975 and a resident of Thondamuthu near here, was handed over to the Blue Mountain Childrens’ Home and later adopted by the Danish couple when he was 18 months old.