The Government is planning to do away with the multiple layers of checks and balances for adoptions of orphaned children by Non-Resident Indians (NRI).
The Centre is pushing for changes in the adoption framework in the Juvenile Justice Act making the process easier and quicker for the prospective NRI parents like their Indian counterparts.
“In our revised draft of JJ Act, the Woman and Child Development Ministry (WCD) has proposed to treat NRI prospective adoptive parents at par with resident Indians. We also want PIOs included in the list. However, there is no proposal to ease the norms for foreigners,” said an official from the WCD Ministry.
Old laws such as The Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 (GWA) and the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956 (HAMA), which govern adoption laws in India, do not allow non-Hindus to adopt children.
These adoptive parents can only be entrusted as the guardians of the children they wish to look after.Another major hurdle obstructing adoptions is that there is an 80:20 adoption ratio criteria stipulated by the Government which provides preference for in-country adoption at 80 per cent against only 20 per cent to NRIs and PIOs.
At present, an NRI can apply for a child only when the child is offered internationally after being rejected thrice for domestic adoption. In the new draft, the Government has proposed to remove these clauses. According to the statistics with the Government, at present there are about 208 NRIs and 498 foreigners waiting to adopt.
The figures also show that there are 890 children (including special needs children) legally free for adoption in Indian Placement Agencies. Such children are available for adoption by domestic Indian parents as well as NRIs and foreigners. To boost the adoption processes in the country, the Government is also planning to create provisions for linking the orphan, abandoned and surrendered children of all Child Care Institutions (CCIs) to the adoption system in the process.
“The objective is to give the child a safe home. Creating boundaries only limits the child’s chances of finding an abode. We are only trying to ensure that the child has more options by increasing the geographical demarcation,” said an official from the Ministry. The Ministry is also trying to create a formula to reduce the timeframe for completion of home study report from two months to one month.
But to add more teeth to Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), which is a statutory body, the Government has proposed to empower the body to regulate inter-country adoptions along with issuing guidelines on adoption and related matter.
“The CARA will perform the functions of promoting in-country adoptions, regulating inter-country adoptions, issuing guidelines on adoption and related matters as may be necessary. It will also carry out the functions of the Central Authority under the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of inter-country adoption,” the draft Bill says.