On March 21st, 2018, there was an article in the Hindu newspaper titled "Disabled children abandoned in Delhi hospital find a home in Chennai". Its a heart breaking story of two children (one and a half month old boy and one year old girl) being found in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) with special needs, in November of 2017.
They were sent to an adoption agency in Delhi who took care of them for sometime and then reported that they cannot continue to do it as they do not have the resources to do so. Hence they were transferred to a child care institution called 'Prema Vasam' in Chennai. I am cautiously happy that there is a home for these children for now. It appears from another newspaper article that it is the second time that this same adoption agency in Delhi gave up on a child (by name 'Anita') and Prema Vasam accepted her. In this same article, it was reported that in 2016 - 2017, state of Tamilnadu had placed 44 special needs children in adoption and 100% of them were placed in other countries with 50% of being sent to the United States.
My immediate thought was "can Indians not adopt children with special needs"? Has India as a nation, done everything for the abandoned children with special needs in fulfilling the fundamental principle governing adoption when they place children in adoption away from the child's own socio-cultural environment? Has India as a nation, done everything in its capacity to assist abandoned children with special needs (by providing medical care) to find homes in India? Above stated facts seem to indicate that it has not.
It is not that there are no big hearted Indians to adopt special needs children but that's only been a trickle. To make that trickle into a stream, business as usual attitude of our nation will not help but rather what we need is the innovation and creativity to do it.
This blogpost is to share my thoughts on how I think this can be changed. I have been sharing these thoughts on various platforms for quite sometime and I will share it again with a hope that someone will take them up.
1. Exclusive adoption agency: When a special needs child is identified and to be placed in an adoption agency, it need not be done at the mercy of the adoption agency or their resources. Either the government or the private sector or the private-public partner can start an agency which exclusively caters to the children with special needs and prioritizes to place such children in Indian homes. Such an adoption agency need to be highly specialized in providing medical care and this cannot be done by any agency but one with high networks with medical institutions and strong resource base.
2. No Fee Adoption: It is unfortunate that adoptions in India costs money. It costs so much that it excludes middle to low income families from considering adoptions. All the recognized specialized adoption agencies are entitled for grant-in aid from the Ministry of Women & Child Development over and above what they are legally allowed to charge the prospective adoptive families as a 'fee'. Also, the fee structure is disproportionately skewed in favor of placing children in foreign country adoption (regulations of 2015). It sounds awfully greedy to say to someone who wants to adopt a child with special needs to pay. Also, having a price tag for adoptions seems to devalue the life of a vulnerable human being. They may have come forward to adopt such a child knowing fully well that they may have to care for his/ her needs for the rest of their lives which could involve exorbitant costs. For this precise reason, I propose 'No Fee Adoption' to make one step easier for the adoptive parents who may want to adopt a child with special needs.
If the Government cannot accept this suggestion ("No Fee Adoption"), I suggest that the direct exchange of money between the prospective adoptive parents and specialized adoption agencies be stopped and be made to go through government to be an intermediary (like an escrow account).
3. Health Insurance Scheme: As I said above that the adoptive parents are well aware that they might have to spend lots of money for a very long time to care for their child. How do we make it easier for them to care for such a child? I suggest that the families that adopt a child with special needs ought to be given a privilege of health insurance policy on the child's name for three years from the date of pre-adoption foster care. This is only a small token of appreciation for the commitment they choose to make to provide a loving home for the rest of his/ her life.
Hope House has been ready to start such an adoption agency for the past 12 years. Want to know more and support the work of the
Hope House? Click here
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2. No Fee Adoption: It is unfortunate that adoptions in India costs money. It costs so much that it excludes middle to low income families from considering adoptions. All the recognized specialized adoption agencies are entitled for grant-in aid from the Ministry of Women & Child Development over and above what they are legally allowed to charge the prospective adoptive families as a 'fee'. Also, the fee structure is disproportionately skewed in favor of placing children in foreign country adoption (regulations of 2015). It sounds awfully greedy to say to someone who wants to adopt a child with special needs to pay. Also, having a price tag for adoptions seems to devalue the life of a vulnerable human being. They may have come forward to adopt such a child knowing fully well that they may have to care for his/ her needs for the rest of their lives which could involve exorbitant costs. For this precise reason, I propose 'No Fee Adoption' to make one step easier for the adoptive parents who may want to adopt a child with special needs.
If the Government cannot accept this suggestion ("No Fee Adoption"), I suggest that the direct exchange of money between the prospective adoptive parents and specialized adoption agencies be stopped and be made to go through government to be an intermediary (like an escrow account).
3. Health Insurance Scheme: As I said above that the adoptive parents are well aware that they might have to spend lots of money for a very long time to care for their child. How do we make it easier for them to care for such a child? I suggest that the families that adopt a child with special needs ought to be given a privilege of health insurance policy on the child's name for three years from the date of pre-adoption foster care. This is only a small token of appreciation for the commitment they choose to make to provide a loving home for the rest of his/ her life.
There's no merit if anyone says that there is no money to care for such children. Such an utterance would amount to a violation of child's right to development and secondly India mops up more than 80,000 crores each month under GST and has 20,000 crores to spare under CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) funds each year.
CARA has become a statutory authority with enormous powers to enact rules of their choice in the best interests of the child. India expects CARA to go the distance to prove it.
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Have a thought to spare? Write in the comments section below. Subscribe to my blogfeed today (on the top left corner of this blog), so you won't miss any of my future posts.
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