All orphans without a date of birth may soon share a common birthday i.e. January 1. The Government has decided in principle to consider the first day of an orphan’s birth year as his or her birthday. This will not only sort out problems like issuance of passports or school admissions — for which a birth certificate is a must — but also facilitate their inter-country adoption. Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, who has been facing issues in executing inter-country adoption of orphans for want of passports, met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj recently to address the problem.
“We are awaiting a written order from the MEA soon, but in principle, Sushma Swaraj has assured me that this matter will find a logical conclusion at the earliest. She said that January 1, of the child’s birth year, would be made his official date of birth,” Maneka told The Pioneer. “We are very concerned about the problem of the lack of birth certificates for orphans. It is a major impediment for issuance of passports, opening of bank accounts, and school admissions to begin with. The child continues to face a host of problems throughout his life,” she said.
The WCD Minister is positive that this will also give a major boost to inter-country adoptions, which have been on a constant downslide in the last five years. “For me, it is not about domestic or international adoptions. I want the 50, 000 orphan children in India to find homes at the earliest,” said Maneka. “Our adoption figures have been on a downhill in the past few years. I want at least 15,000 adoptions to happen annually and the proposed Juvenile Justice Bill has provisions to make the adoption process simple and fast,” she said.
The data with the government shows that adoptions have been showing a remarked decline since the past few years. Domestic adoptions in India have nearly halved from 5,693 in 2010 to 2,503 in 2014 and similarly international adoptions have come down from 628 in 2010-11 to 300 in 2014-15. “The adoption rate has stumbled from 1,500-1,200 in 2000 to 400-800 at present. In a country which has more than 50,000 orphans waiting to be adopted, it is shameful that our adoption numbers are so low and continue to come down,” said Maneka.
The Central Adoption Resource Authority, which functions under the WCD ministry, had written to the MEA for expediting the issuance of passports to adopted children under inter-country adoption, where they requested the latter to consider the date of birth recorded by the court in its order for adoption as the conclusive date of birth without insisting for the birth certificate.
The MEA refused to entertain the request saying, “The requirement of production of birth certificate for the adopted child under inter-country adoption born on or after January 26, 1989 would remain a mandatory requirement in terms of the provision contained in the Passport Rules, 1980 besides the court order….”