Subhash C Pandey
There is a need to remove bottlenecks and unburden the courts so that the process of providing permanent care facilities for orphans is speeded up
The period between April 1 and June 5 found 30,071 children in need of care of protection as 26,176 of them lost either parent, 3,621 children lost both parents and 274 children were abandoned. Many of them are ‘Covid Orphans.’ Of them 15,620 are boys, 14,447 girls and four transgenders; 11,815 are in the 8-13 age group and 5,107 in the 4-7 age group. Nearly all of them are in the care of a guardian, a family member or a surviving parent while the rest are in shelter homes, orphanages or with “special adoption agencies.”
The number of out-of-home care children in need of care and protection in India is estimated to be about 2.4 crore and the number is continuously on the rise. Several financial support measures have been announced for orphaned children from the PM Cares Fund, Ministry of Women and Child Development and by States. However, the issue remains that these orphans’ needs in terms of permanent homes and settlement have to be taken care of as a priority.
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 is primary legislation for ensuring the safety, security, dignity and well-being of children. The orphans need to be produced before Children Welfare Committees (CWCs) which decide whether the child can be kept with the extended family, in foster care with support or at State-run centres. The Act also lays down procedures for their adoption. However, in practice, it has been found that the courts are heavily clogged with arrears and the adoption proceedings take years. In 2015, the Government instituted a centralised online system CARINGS (Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System) to facilitate adoption primarily to check abuse of adoption proceedings by NGOs. Only prospective parents registered on CARINGS portal managed by Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) can adopt children. CARA prefers orphans under kinship care, with shelter homes being the last resort. A child under two years is considered ‘legally free’ to be adopted if no one approaches the shelter home for two months. The waiting period is four months for older children. As many as 5,693 children were adopted in 2010 and 5,964 in 2011. After the institution of CARA and CARINGS in 2015, the pace of adoption has distinctly slowed down to 1881 in 2015-16, 3,210 in 2016-17and 2,160 in 2020-21. The pandemic has slowed down the adoption process further as it also affected functioning of courts.
There is a bias towards adoption of infants. Over 80 per cent of adoptions are of children below two years. Litigation and challenges end up delaying the adoption process. In the last three years, 174 cases ended in disruption — termination of adoption proceeding before finalisation — and five cases ended in dissolution — termination after finalisation.
Hundreds of adoption cases are still pending in courts. An amendment to the concerned Act to transfer powers vested in courts to District Magistrates in order to speed up adoptions process is awaiting Rajya Sabha approval. The amendment also seeks to give a prominent role to District Magistrates in superintendence of Child Care Institutions, mostly run by NGOs supposedly under the oversight of the Social Welfare Department. It is found that the NGOs are interested in getting funding without properly providing even basic facilities of food, hygiene and sanitation. There have also been serious complaints of abuse of inmates in some of NGO-run facilities.
The 2015 law had ushered in the concept of foster care in India in which the child is placed with a caregiver running a residential child care facility or in a private home of a foster parent. They receive financial support from Government.
The system provides personalized parental care in a family-like environment to a group of unrelated children in a community setting. It is considered suitable for street children who pass through a weaning period prior to their placement in individual foster care or any other form of family-based care. In the broader interest of these children, there is a case for evolving newer, more flexible mechanisms that are less stringent than full-scale legal adoption or a formal foster-care arrangement. One mechanism is that of sponsorship charities run by NGOs, which can be adopted by the Government to connect a donor/sponsor with a particular child. It allows for financial and emotional support without the legal implications on succession. Not only the childless seeking adoption but persons of means with children can come forward under a Government-managed system to support children.
The writer is former Special Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. The views expressed are personal.
