Adopting a child in India remains a tortuous affair, despite digitisation

We have to make the state regulation authorities, which keep a check on adoption activity, more responsible, said Lt Col Deepak Kumar, CEO, CARA

Eight years ago, Ria Patel and George Karimundackal brought home two-month-old Zahra from Palna, the adoption agency run by the Delhi Council for Child Welfare. The family continues to be associated with Palna and the couple often bring Zahra along for a visit. The little girl has been told that she was adopted. Mature for her age, Zahra now tries to convince her mother to bring her a sibling from Palna.

They are among the lucky ones. India has thousands of prospective adoptive parents (PAPs), and most are stuck in an adoptive process where there aren’t enough children available for adoption. Says Lieutenant Colonel Deepak Kumar, CEO of the Central Adoption Research Authority (CARA), the statutory body under the Ministry of Women and Child Development that monitors all adoptions in India, “Every year, about 10,000 people register with CARA but we are able to place children with only 30 per cent of the families.”

It takes anywhere between a few months and up to five years after PAPs register themselves with CARA for them to bring home a child.

India’s adoption process tries to be more efficient and transparent one. To consolidate the various child care institutions and bring more children into the adoption pool, the whole process was digitised and brought under the direct control of CARA in 2015. All adoption agencies in the country, including the ones recognised by their respective state governments, are required to register with CARA. And PAPs get their chance at adopting a baby only via CARA’s online referral system.

Even so, only 2,406 children were adopted in 2016-17, according to the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

In a 2011 report, UNICEF estimated that 25 million children in India were orphans. But most of these children are not registered with any adoption agency or child care institution. Moreover, about 50,000 children are “legally free” to be adopted, claims a 2016 IndiaSpend report. The term refers to children whose birth parents’ rights have been terminated by a court, either because the parents have voluntarily surrendered the child or the police are unable to trace them. The report further states that about 1,600 children are adopted in a year, while the rest of them either have medical conditions or are above the age of five, which greatly diminishes their chances of being adopted.

The disturbingly low adoption rates are also attributed to the fact that, despite the existence of CARA, unregistered orphanages continue to flourish, illegally placing children in families often with the collusion of unscrupulous doctors or hospital authorities.

“In one case, the adoptive parents came and got their names included in the child’s birth certificate and took the child home with the help of the hospital management,” says a Delhi-based doctor on the condition of anonymity.

“We have to make the State Adoption Regulation Authorities (SARA), which keep a check on adoption activity in a state, more responsible,” says CARA’s Kumar, adding that the government shut down about 300 illegal adoption agencies in the last few years.

CARA’s digitised process is aimed at reducing the wait time and ensuring more transparency. Earlier, prospective adoptive parents had to find an adoption agency and follow up on their individual wait lists. Now they have to register on the CARA website and join a first come, first served list. They have to upload the relevant documents demonstrating their ability to raise a child and state their preferences — age, gender and willingness to adopt a child with special needs. The next step is to pick one among the registered adoption agencies in their state for a home study, which is conducted by an adoption officer from the agency.

To tone the process further, CARA introduced fresh guidelines in April 2017, according to which, prospective adoptive parents would no longer be able to “shop” for babies, as it were. Earlier, PAPs could choose from a set of six babies when their turn in the online referral system came up. Now, CARA sends the photograph and profile of a maximum of three babies with a gap of 90 days between each. Prospective parents have 48 hours to make up their minds. If they reject the children, then they fall to the back of the queue and the whole process starts once again.

Nursing staff attend to babies at the agency. Photo: Sanjay K Sharma

“In principle the system should work better. At least, all those who register have the opportunity of getting a child,” says Aloma Lobo, former chairperson of CARA, who is also a paediatrician, adoption consultant and co-author of The Penguin Guide to Adoption in India.

But Lobo has her reservations about the current system. She feels that though the online process is more streamlined, it lacks the human touch. “Adoption is a human interaction. Especially in the case of children with special needs, it requires a lot of interaction between the agency, the prospective family and the child,” she says.

For some PAPs, the system does prove to be harrowing. One Delhi-based journalist first registered with Palna in 2011, before the new guidelines were in place. She was offered two girls, twins, for adoption. But her husband was not ready to raise two children. Her next attempt was under the new CARA system, where the couple was sent six profiles. They had indicated their inability to adopt a child with special needs, but it turned out that on two consecutive occasions, the child they wished to adopt showed signs of Down Syndrome during medical tests. So they had to back out. The experience, which went on for months, has left the woman psychologically scarred. Though she is still registered with CARA, the couple has not been contacted again by the agency.

Gayatri Abraham, a social worker in Bengaluru and founder of Padme, a platform that brings together parents, doctors, counsellors and all other stakeholders in the pre- and post-adoption framework, says that medical reports produced by adoption agencies have been inconsistent in many cases.

“CARA relies on these reports. They can’t scrutinise the adoption agencies or the profiles of parents beyond the documents they receive,” says Abraham, the mother of two adopted children. “While the intentions are noble, there are many loopholes in the process,” she adds.

However, Lorraine Campos of Palna is more welcoming of the evolving process. She concedes that it is no secret that some adoption agencies take donations and make arbitrary selections. “But the respectable agencies do scrutinise the prospective families, counsel them and match them with children after many rounds of interactions — always with the child’s best interests at heart,” she says.