Adoption racket? Karnataka hospitals 'selling'  babies
Seethalakshmi S, TNN, May 17, 2010, 02.38am  IST
 
BANGALORE:  Couples waiting for adoption have now found an easier route to get their bundle  of joy. They book their request with a hospital which, in turn, happily sells an  abandoned child for a price. 
The Karnataka Child Protection Commission  has been receiving some complaints about hospitals illegally selling children  for adoption, while the Adoption Coordination Agency (ACA) has stopped getting  children from hospitals. 
The agency, which is the official body for  finally placing children for adoption, has asked the government to book  hospitals for trafficking if children are given away without following  procedures and legalities as per the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956.  
"Not just that, families/parents who take children directly from  hospitals can be booked for kidnapping. Even if it is family adoption, it must  be cleared by the Child Welfare Committees. Every rule must be followed," says  ACA chairperson Aloma Lobo. 
KCPC chairperson Nina Nayak has written to  the health and women and child welfare departments to ensure that hospitals  compulsorily surrender abandoned children to adoption agencies. "We have been  receiving complaints about nursing homes and hospitals involved in illegally  handing over new-born babies of unwed mothers to couples wanting to adopt  children." 
A nursing home in Hanumanthnagar is said to have demanded Rs  20,000 from a registered agency to hand over an abandoned baby. Shockingly, when  the agency visited the hospital, the child was missing and the hospital said it  didn't have any child. 
Again, last month, a hi-tech hospital in Udupi  had kept 19 children for over a year. A week after they were questioned, all  children had left the hospital. On investigation, the commission found that one  of the hospital authorities had floated an NGO to place the children up for  adoption. "During inquiry, they confessed that mothers who preferred not to take  low-weight birth children or children born out of wedlock often sold them to the  hospital for huge sums of money," says Nina Nayak. 
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