Efforts to fast-track inter-country adoptions has taken a hit after the Ministry of External Affairs turned down the Ministry of Women and Child Development’s request to grant clearance to passports to orphan children waiting for adoptions without a date-of-birth certification.
At least 40 per cent orphans in queue for adoption don’t have a birth certificate making them unfit for inter-country adoptions. This makes situation worse for children, who don’t find takers within the country.
“We had recently written to the MEA for allowing passports to orphan children, without valid date of births but the request was not entertained,” said an official from CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority), the centralised nodal agency, which functions under ambit of the WCD Ministry.
“The MEA should try and find a way to accommodate such children as they will continue to suffer in the long run. Even if they are adopted within the country, the fact that they do not have birth certificates will remain a constant roadblock to their growth. They will have problems getting admissions in education institutes, formal jobs or even in opening a bank account,” said the official.
According to the Supreme Court guidelines, adoption preference should be given to Indian parents first. If the Indian parents decline to accept the child in adoption, only then the child may be shown to foreign parents. The ratio of Indian adoptions versus foreign adoptions has to be no more than 80:20.
Data with the Government shows that inter-country has been showing a steep decline since the past few years. International adoptions have nearly halved from 628 in 2010-11 to 300 in 2014-15.
Statistics show that most children adopted from India end up in homes in the United States, followed by Italy. Data with CARA shows that 662 children were adopted by Americans between 2010 and 2013. A total of 377 children were sent to Italy, while 149 were found homes in Spain and 88 in UAE.