CARA asks States to make stringent laws to protect adopted children

New Delhi, May 10 (UNI) In view of a large number of cases related to illegal adoptions and instances of abuse of adopted children, the Centre has decided to ask the state governments to make stringent laws to prevent them and protect the rights of children.

Mr J K Mittal, Chairperson of the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) told UNI that he would soon write to the Chief Ministers of all the states asking them to amend the existing laws so as to prevent any kind of abuse of adopted children.

CARA, an autonomous organisation working under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, was not satisfied with the existing laws dealing with adoption as there were no adequate provisions to check the abuse of adopted children.

''Though under the existing provisions regular check ups of the adopted children are done for a period of two years, the existence of a large number of unregistered agencies working in the field of adoption results in many lacunae,'' he said.

Moreover, most of the time child abuse of children goes unreported, he pointed out and said that not many written reports were received by CARA and it has to depend on media reports or verbal complaints from NGOs working in the field. In view of this, the legality of the issue would be discussed and then the state governments, who were directly responsible for adoptions, would urge to make suitable changes in the laws and rules to protect the rights of adopted children.

Mr Mittal said he has already written to Chief Ministers of all the states to ensure registeration of all the agencies working in the field of child adoption, as many a time they resort to illegal adoptions from hospitals and nursing homes. The registeration was also required in view of the complaints of theft of infants from hospitals and nursing homes, he said.

The CARA Chairperson lamented that despite lip service to the cause of children, the state governments were not doing much to forward the cause of adoption of orphaned and abandoned children. He said states have been asked to register all orphaned and abandoned children so that a data base of children available for adoption in the country could be prepared.

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