Hope for aspiring parents as state may get 10 new adoption agencies

To meet the demand to adopt children, the State Adoption Resource Agency (SARA) is taking measures to add adoption agencies in 10 districts besides identifying children who can be adopted from other child care institutions.

At present, there are about 1,300 prospective adoptive parents registered in the state while only about 200 children are free for adoption.

To the existing 30 agencies in the state, SARA is attempting to add a Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAAs) each in Tumakuru, Shivamogga, Kolar, Raichur, Yadgir, Chikkaballapur, Chitradurga, Chamarajanagar, Kodagu and Mysuru districts.

It has received applications from a few districts including Tumakuru and Shivamogga.
Moreover, SARA has asked District Child Protection Units to identify children who are free for adoption in orphanages and care homes.

This is a lengthy process as all efforts to trace the parents or guardians of missing, abandoned and orphan children have to be made before a child can be declared free for adoption.

Narmada Anand, project director of the state’s Integrated Child Development Society said, “Most of the children in orphanages and child homes have a single parent or their parents have left them there because they don’t have the means to take care of them.

Only when children are surrendered by the parents or are abandoned, can they be given for adoption.” 

Setting up these agencies would only result in a marginal increase in the number of children, she opined.

The new Central Adoption Resource Authority guidelines which came into effect in August 2015 have moved the process online and made it more transparent.

Prospective parents can register online and adopt children from any state in the country. Earlier, they had to register at the individual agency.

Bhagya Lakshmi, who runs Paraspara Adoption Centre, one of the SAAs in Bengaluru, said that while the process has reduced the burden on NGOs, there are certain complications too.

“We have to follow up every few months with the adoptive parents after the process is completed to ensure that the child is well adjusted. If the adoptive parents are in Delhi, it becomes very difficult as the agency responsible in that state will not have the same interest to follow up as we do.”

She added that the process of getting a child declared legally free by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) gets delayed sometimes. “If it is done faster, then we can put the children up for adoption sooner. We have spoken to SARA about this.”

Anupama Hegde, chairperson, CWC however said that there is no delay in the process.
“The committee has to be satisfied that the child, who may be orphaned, abandoned or surrendered does not have any legal guardian and is hence free for adoption. It takes about two to  three months to ascertain this.” 

After new guidelines came into effect, 18 children from Karnataka have been adopted till now by NRIs, overseas citizens and foreigners, mostly from the USA, UAE and Finland.

Adoptions since 2014
*March 2014 to April 2015: 204 adopted, 349 placed in pre-adoption foster care
*March 2015 to April 2016: 173 children adopted, 274 placed in pre-adoption foster care
*April to June 2016: 59, including 35 girls placed in pre-adoption foster care