If you have been following the number of adoptions in/ from India, they have been on the decline. If my instincts are correct, it is only going get harder and harder to adopt a child in/ from India for all the right reasons.
From both sides of the equation (supply and demand) of adoption there’s general progress in India. Allow me to explain on both sides of my understanding.
On the supply side, you may already have heard that there is less number of children to be placed in adoption. To confirm this fact, one needs to go beyond the number of children in adoption agencies and must understand the increasing progressiveness of the Indian society in general.
There are three points to consider: Firstly, there’s an increased emphasis in India on education and employment. Government is pumping in huge amounts of money to enable equal access to education for all. In the future, more and more pregnant women are going to be literates and they will make informed decisions. More and more women are entering the workforce and they will see brighter side to their family’s future. Secondly, Child rights and media awareness of it is increasing exponentially. To be in compliance with UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), Indian government has created a commission exclusively to protect the child rights in India called “National Council on Protection of Child rights”. Thirdly, government’s eligibility criterion (to declare for adoption) has become very stringent.
On the demand side, unlike in the past, we must look beyond the number of infertile couples desiring to adopt. More and more unconventional families (singles and fertile couples etc) are coming forward to adopt. In a book “World is flat”, author Tom Friedman states that there are about 500 million Indians that are in their 20’s with education and employment. More and more Indians are having increased disposable income and progressive mindset to consider to adopt a child irrespective of fertility.
Last factor to consider is the technology. In the future, increasingly people will use Internet to find a child to adopt from anywhere in India irrespective of their own geography. Considering the demand, this will shorten the child’s stay considerably in an adoption agency but delay the process for families.
All these factors will take time and will make adoptions longer and longer in the future. May be inter-country adoptions are not too far for Indians. But isn’t that the way democracy works? – Change by evolution and not by revolution?
Write me a comment.
Ruby
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