ARCHBISHOP DENIES CHURCH CENTER INDULGED IN CHILD TRAFFICKING
An archbishop has challenged government agencies to prove their allegation that a Catholic orphanage in his southern Indian archdiocese is involved in child trafficking.
Archbishop Marampudi Joji of Hyderabad challenged "government officials or any responsible person" April 28 to inspect Tender Loving Care (TLC) home after police in Andhra Pradesh state accused it of adoption irregularities.
The archbishop, considered the head of the Catholic Church in Andhra Pradesh, denied that the nuns who run Church-approved and government-sanctioned TLC are involved in illegal procurement of children for adoption. He has appealed to state Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu on the matter.
In raids over 10 days from April 21, state Child Welfare Department officials "rescued" 187 children from eight adoption homes and other places.
In the first raid, the department found 65 children abandoned in a private adoption center.
Its managers, allegedly involved in child trafficking, anticipated the raid and escaped. Police have announced a 100,000-rupee (about US$ 2,170) reward for information leading to the arrest of its director.
In contrast, two officials of the federal Central Adoption Resources Agency (CARA) recently visited TLC in Hyderabad, 1,500 kilometers south of New Delhi, and found nothing amiss. It housed 89 children at the time of inspection.
Police in neighboring Nalgonda district, however, reportedly accused TLC of being involved in buying and selling children under the guise of adoption.
"Our hands are clean. We have nothing to hide," TLC head Sister Tresa Maria told UCA News.
Stressing the legitimacy of TLC´s operations, Archbishop Joji suggested that the allegations against it stem from "jealousy."
Saying that poverty has forced parents to abandon children, he urged the state to improve people´s economic situation and properly implement family planning.
According to Missionaries of Charity Sister Loretto, who runs a children´s home in Secunderabad, Hyderabad´s twin city, the issue of child trafficking is often raised in connection with foreign adoptions.
Sister Loretto´s Nirmala Sishu Bhavan (children´s home for the pure) houses 50 orphans and arranges, on average, 25 local adoptions a year.
The nun said the home accepts no cash for adoptions, but "if the adopting parents wish, they could give whatever they wish for the home."
Most of the children are girls the home gets from police, railway stations or hospitals -- abandoned due to poverty or by unwed mothers, the nun added.
St. Gabriel Brothers provincial Brother Varghese Theckanath, who worked with urban poor people in Andhra, views the adoption situation as "a socio-economic problem" exacerbated by the state´s policies.
He said a dam project in Nalgonda district four decades ago displaced several Lambadi tribal families and their "condition is worsening each year."
Noting that several tribal families have sold children to orphanages in Hyderabad, Brother Theckanath said he wants the Church to help improve the displaced people´s education, health and socio-economic situation.
Human rights activist Jeevan Kumar also describes child trafficking as "a poverty-related problem," citing a two-year-old study that found poor tribal families giving up mostly girl children for adoption.
Social scientist Usha Rani criticized the government for spending "a lot of money on tourism and other projects" instead of fighting poverty.
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