Missionaries of Charity joins adoption system

Three years after the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) decided to stop giving children in its homes up for adoption, it has agreed to join hands with the country’s nodal agency for adoption.

The development follows a meeting between Sister Mary Prema Pierick, the head of the organisation and Mother Teresa’s successor and Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi at the latter’s office on Monday.

“I requested them to come back into the CARA system of adoption so that children in the 79 MoC homes can go into family care. Sister Prema agreed to my request... so children in the MoC homes can be onboarded into CARINGS expeditiously,” Ms Gandhi said on Twitter.

In October 2015, soon after the Central government announced new rules for adoption and made it mandatory for all homes to be linked to the Child Adoption Resource Authority(CARA), which would be the only body in the country authorised to process adoptions, the Missionaries of Charity sought de-recognition of its homes.

Without specifying the reasons for its decision, the MoC had said in a press statement that complying with all the provisions of the new regulations would be difficult for the organisation.

CARA CEO Lt Col Deepak Kumar, welcoming the decision, said, “children in various homes of the Missionaries of Charity will now be linked to a Specialised Adoption Agency (SAA) and details of children would be available on our website.

.