Understanding and Enabling Adoption: Policy and societal imperatives

Adoption around the world

World-wide about 200,000 children are adopted each year legally as compared to 150 million plus who are orphans. The figure of children in destitution, in need of care, would be much higher. USA tops the number of children adopted at about 140,000. In contrast India adopts fewer than 4000 children. According to UNICEF, there are over 60 million destitute children in India, yet just 4000 adoptions.

Why is it that in a country which is second most populous in the world, fast moving towards becoming the most populous, while on one hand has such a large number of children who need care and safety but there are such few adoptions on the other?

Situation in India

Data of Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), analyzed by Families of Joy Foundation, an NGO dedicated to building understanding about adoption and working towards an enabling ecosystem, has found that while the number of children in the adoption pool has gone up from 1883 to 2261 during the last one year, the number of healthy children below 2 years of age has dropped by 65 percent from 209 to 75 in the same period. The number of children with special needs, available for adoption, has grown a whopping 60 percent from 951 to 1354. Over 26000 parents registered with CARA want to adopt a child from these 2261 children and over 80 percent of them want to adopt a healthy child below 2 years of age. No wonder then that the average wait time for these parents to bring their child home is upward of two years.

An alarming picture

In a country of Indian scale, how is it possible that only 75 healthy children under the age of two years are legally free for adoption in childcare institutions ? Where are the rest of the children? Possibilities are- either they are being adopted under Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA) outside Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), the system for adoption under the Juvenile Justice Act (JJ Act) or being illegally adopted and possibly being trafficked. Surprisingly, it is possible to traffic children even when they are adopted legally under HAMA as the law requires only consent between two sets of Hindu parents, one willing to relinquish and the other willing to adopt. It does not require an official surrender of the child. Adoption under this law does not require any due diligence such as home study or background check of parents adopting or any documentation of parents relinquishing the child.

Since no due diligence is needed, prospective adoptive parents are taking children from anywhere- hospitals, adoption agencies, childcare institutions which are not reporting these children in their system. All healthy and often fair children who are most desired by families are making way through this pipeline, often at a premium leaving barely a trickle of 75 children under two years in CARINGS. All those children who are not making it to the CARINGS adoption pool are at risk of being killed, abandoned, left in unsafe shelters, sold and even separated from birth parents illegally. Even parents adopting under HAMA stand to lose their child if trafficking is uncovered, treated as criminals and child could return to an institution. Yet, an unestimated much larger number of children (roughly about 3000 a month according to estimates based on the adoption deeds registered in Delhi about three years ago) are being adopted under this route, diverting the children who could be in the adoption pool under CARINGS. This must alarm policy makers as children in the young and populous nation are increasingly at risk and vulnerable under the broken system where unscrupulous people are taking advantage of vulnerabilities and desperation of parents to adopt a baby. We are on the edge of a precipice of deep humanitarian crisis which is rooted in Indian tradition and bias attenuated by a fragmented and corrupt system.

Beliefs resulting in a parent centric approach

It is estimated that over 40 million couples are affected by infertility in India. People are conditioned to consider only their own biological child as their own given the strong emphasis and need for a child, particularly a son in Indian culture and tradition. “Mukhagni”- the last rites can only be performed by a son, recognizing the need for which HAMA was promulgated in 1956. In simple words, only Hindus could adopt to ensure they had a ‘dattak’ to fulfill parents’ need as per tradition and belief. This was essentially a personal law till such time, the courts recognized the rights of people of other faiths also to legally adopt leading up to promulgation of JJ Act in 2000. This landmark legislation also recognized the legal rights of children adopted by parents of other faiths.

Since adoption is correlated with inability to bear a child in India, fact of adoption is often kept hidden from the child and the society. It is this need for hiding that contributes to parents quietly adopting a baby under HAMA without many questions or due diligence and bare minimum documentation. Not only is this shroud of secrecy unhealthy for the child, the family but also fosters several myths around adoption and hinders it rather than aid it.

Discrepancies between HAMA and JJ Act putting children at risk

Today, if parents want to adopt a child under JJ Act, they have to register under CARINGS and wait in the queue of 26000 parents for about 2200 children in the pool. For others who do not wish to wait, adopt under HAMA, bypassing all due diligence required under JJ Act. HAMA can be likened to a freeway where there are no checkpoints, complete opacity and large unmeasured pool of children who could be exploited and are at risk. Adoption under JJ Act on the other hand looks more like a narrow village street filled with potholes of checks and balances. In one, parents could take a child of their choice at the time of their choice without any questions, clandestinely without ever having to make public the fact of adoption, the other route has a small pool of about 2200 children to choose from, 60 percent of whom have special needs, barely 75 children under two years and the process takes two years to bring the child home. Obviously, parents want to take the highway leaving the narrow village lane.

Plug loopholes in HAMA

Policy makers must recognize this grave problem of children falling through the cracks which could deepen into a humanitarian crisis. Hapless children do not have a voice and parents keen to adopt are often doing so in desperation as a measure of last resort, having exhausted their options of begetting a biological child. Those who cannot adopt under HAMA i.e. non Hindus and foreigners (including nonresident Indians adopting from outside India) have to necessarily adopt under JJ Act. This group includes several and growing number of brave and resolute parents including single parents who are choosing to build a family voluntarily through adoption, many of them adopting children with special needs. This subset also includes parents who have a biological child but wish to share their love and affection with another child who is in this world rather than adding another. Policy makers must urgently take steps to amend HAMA and apply due diligence as applicable for adoption under JJ Act ensure a safe future for the child and the family. This could be achieved by repeal of section 56(3) of the JJ Act which mentions that no provisions laid out in the JJ Act would apply to HAMA.

JJ act has an inventory of child centric regulations to protect the interests of both the child and the family. At the bare minimum, provisions such as background checks, home study, adoption criterion must be extended to adoptions under HAMA. This will not only ensure safety for the child and the parent in adoption irrespective of the route but also reduce the incentive for diverting children for illegal adoption, trafficking and enlarge the adoption pool at the same time.

Changing lens, opening heart and mind

For time immemorial, Indians have adopted children owing to their need and the subject is in the realm of myths and legends. Thus, the system evolved through HAMA is parent centric as it keeps parents’ needs and interests first. There is a growing breed of parents who are choosing to build a family voluntarily through adoption. For our young nation, adoption is a wonderful way of finding a family for a vast number of children who are in vulnerable circumstances and need love and security of home and family. It is a way of protecting the future of the country and nation building. To make sure that every child whose birth parents are unable or unwilling to look after her, finds a loving home, an ecosystem needs to be built where adoption has a positive identity and the families in adoption have a supportive environment. The support must come first from the laws of the land, their streamlined implementation and the society.

What does the supportive ecosystem require?

It is time, the policies came to the aid of the braveheart adoptive parents. Apart from due diligence in HAMA to plug the leakage of children and enlarging the pool of children, measures small and big are required. First, capacity of the adoption system needs to be built by training of staff at CARA and the various agencies involved with the process at the state level. Counselling must be mandatory to adopt a baby to ensure readiness of the prospective adoptive parents. Preparing parents who are adopting an older child (older than two years of age and has spent time in an institution) is essential for better assimilation of the child in the family and prevent the rising instances of dissolution. A compassionate and informed counselor can make a world of difference to an adoption experience. Health insurance for children in institutions will go a long way to protecting health of children when they are most vulnerable and enable adoption of and raising healthier children. Inclusive HR policies which extend benefits related to health, education, travel and childcare to adoptive families will further promote legal adoption.

One big fix needed is to have an integrated nationwide technology enabled solution which requires every child in every childcare institution to be identified uniquely and registered to track her health, welfare and adoption. This system must have a central database which must be updated by all legally registered childcare institutions. The system must have adequate behavioural nudges as well as financial and systematic requirements to ensure children are entered into the system.

Finally, society which includes all of us needs to understand that adoptive families are normal families. They neither have horns nor tail- neither the parents nor the children. These families are built upon immense love, trust and patience. They experience the same joys and pains and have the same aspirations and hopes. Very often, these families are strong, resolute and beat many odds. Adoption is a journey of discovery, learning, acceptance and growth. It is a road less travelled, but it is one which is eminently worth taking!

Vandana Kumar is an adoptive parent and co-founder Families of Joy Foundation. The article is based on her experience in the field of adoption for about two decades.Views are personal.