For many Indian orphans, placement in the West is the only chance of a life with a family. But couples willing to adopt must sometimes wage a grueling battle against bureaucracy

Document type: Web page copy

Publication date: 8 October 2024

For many Indian orphans, placement in the West is the only chance of a life with a family. But couples willing to adopt must sometimes wage a grueling battle against bureaucracy

The one-year-old sits up in her crib with wide eyes. The girl is much too thin and too small for her age

Jegan shyly points to the crumpled photo in his brown hand. Then he whispers: "Dad, Mum." The man in the picture is holding a blonde woman in his arms. The little Indian's finger continues to wander across the paper: a laughing boy and a girl with cheeky braids are steering a white motorboat. Jegan looks questioningly out from under his jet-black fringe of hair. "Brother," Sister Paulina interjects: "Brother and Sister."

The six-year-old speaks Tamil, he can barely speak English and not at all in German. He could have learned his first words of Swabian months ago if it weren't for the bureaucratic hurdles: Monika and Ulrich Kippelt from Alfdorf in Stuttgart have been fighting to adopt the Indian orphan since September 2003. The story of Jegan and his new parents is a drama with great emotions, disappointments and hopes and an uncertain ending. It shows how difficult international adoptions are - and how important.

In India, for example, Jegan would have had little chance. His unmarried mother had given him to an orphanage in Kerala in southern India immediately after his birth, and male babies are usually the easiest to adopt. But when the doctors diagnosed the child with a chronic thyroid disease, it was clear that no Indian adoptive parents would be found: the cost of the medication was too high. So when Jegan was two years old, he moved to Chennai to live with the Franciscan nuns at the Saint Thomas Mount baby home, which has a state license for adoptions in the West. The crucial requirement: they must have been rejected three times by Indian couples.

© Andrea Schuhmacher
Older children are difficult to place in India, but the Indian authorities still caused problems for the German adoptive parents. Jegan in the checked trousers was successful

"Sometimes it goes pretty quickly," explains Sister Paulina, the 57-year-old home director, as she leads us through the meticulously clean bedrooms of the one- to two-year-olds in a rust-red sari. The children lie alone in rusty cots. Pink and lemon-yellow teddy bears watch them from a wall shelf. The girls and boys are much too thin and too small for their age. "It takes us a long time to fatten up the babies," says Paulina. "Some of them only weigh a good kilo when they are brought here."

Especially girls, whose marriage could ruin their parents financially, often cannot find adoptive parents at home, reports Sister Paulina. "It is also difficult with dark-skinned and older children," she explains - even in the West. "Most couples want babies." The sisters were therefore happy when the Kippelts chose Jegan. "We pray that it will work out soon."

The Alfdorf couple wanted Jegan as a younger sibling for their previously adopted children: they had adopted Johannes, now ten years old, and Teresa, seven years old, after it became clear that Monika Kippelt could not have children of her own following an appendectomy. When the Indian adoption agency offered them Jegan through the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Welfare Office, they were immediately excited - even though they had not even been allowed to see a photo of the boy before accepting the offer.

But then the adoption date is delayed again and again. Sometimes a clerk in India loses the form about the financial circumstances, sometimes the German district youth welfare office enters the wrong wedding date. "It's enough for a typo to creep in somewhere and everything drags on for months longer," Monika Kippelt sighs impatiently.

Last September, the orphanage finally gave the green light and the Kippelts flew to Chennai during the autumn holidays to pick up Jegan: "We had to save up a lot for the trip, but we wanted our two older children to be there."

The new family spends ten days in a hotel on the beach: According to the adoption regulations, the family is supposed to get to know each other in Jegan's homeland. The reserved boy soon blossoms, splashing around in the pool with his siblings. He speaks in Tamil, with his hands and feet, and tries his first words in German: "Brushing your teeth," he shouts when he is impressed by the teeth of a reptile during a visit to a crocodile farm.

At the end of the school holidays, the father and the two older children fly back to Germany. Monika Kippelt stays with Jegan in the hotel in Chennai and waits for his exit passport. But the Minister for Social Affairs is overworked and does not sign the application. After three weeks, it is still not clear when Jegan will receive his documents.

Monika Kippelt decides to stay for another five weeks. If the papers are not ready by then, she wants to fly back. But when the mother and adopted son pay a visit to the children's home, the teachers secretly take the boy to a locked area. Unjustly, because by that time the Kippelts already had guardianship of the little boy. Monika Kippelt hears Jegan yelling behind the barred door. "After that, I didn't see him again."

She spends the rest of her time trying to get Jegan's passport from the Indian authorities and seeks help from the German consulate in vain. It could take three days, but it could also take three months, the official in charge explains to her with a shrug.

Shortly before Christmas, she flies back to Germany alone. She tries to throw herself into everyday family life, but her nerves are frayed. "It's incomprehensible," she moans. "Nobody wants this child there and we're not allowed to bring it home."

It's no wonder that for most couples, international adoption is only a last resort. Most couples experiment with artificial insemination for years before trying this route. "Luckily, we were spared that," says Elke Fischer. She already knew at the age of 14 that she would not be able to have children of her own. "When we're ready, we'll adopt," she and her husband Bernd Märkle decided.

But the German youth welfare offices "put everything down for us at first," Märkle remembers. They were told that they would have to wait up to seven years for a German child, and then neither partner could be over 40 years old. Seminars were held to examine the adoptive parents' motivation, ideas about parenting, income, health and social environment. Applicants also had to prove that they had a stable partnership and were able to cope with stress. "We had the impression that no one really wanted to help us."

In this situation, a television report about the state-approved agency for international adoptions ICCO in Hamburg gave her the idea of trying her luck in India. Since both countries ratified the "Hague Convention on International Adoptions", Indian foreign adoptions have become safer: While the suitability of the parents is checked in Germany, the Indian adoption authority CARA investigates whether the children are actually orphans or abandoned children.

Despite the competent support of the organization, the adoptive parents expected a lot of complications: In two years, they received confirmations for four different adopted daughters. But each time, nothing came of the placement because, according to the Indian authorities, the girls were returned to their biological parents. "We were extremely disappointed each time," remembers Elke Fischer.

The third time, the two were lucky: In December 2004, they were able to pick up three-year-old Sonali from the Preet Mandir children's home in Pune. In a ceremonial ritual, the home director put flower necklaces around their necks and painted an orange dot on the foreheads of the new parents. He asked both of them to stretch out their arms, then he placed the little girl in the frilly dress in their arms. "I was terribly afraid that I would burst into tears," remembers Elke Fischer. To the applause of the nurses, Bernd Märkle had to break open a coconut. It fell into small pieces: "Good!" commented the home director, that brings good luck!"

At first, Sonali doesn't know what to do with the doll she brought with her from Germany, as she hardly knows any toys. She also has to get used to her new dad, as up until now only women have looked after her. But the day before the flight back to Germany, she voluntarily gives her new parents a goodnight kiss for the first time. Then she holds on to both of them with one hand and falls asleep.

And Monika Kippelt finally received the news she had been waiting for in February of this year: the passport is here, Jegan can come. She quickly wrote an email: "I'm totally excited and at my wits' end, full of anticipation and yet still full of fear that there will be some pitfall lurking somewhere that no one is expecting."

Countries: India, Germany