Girls emerge as preferred choice for adoption

New Delhi, Jan 10: Girls are the preferred choice for people opting for adoption in comparison to the boys in the country, even as the government struggles to improve the skewed sex-ratio.

7,439 girls were taken up for adoption in the last three years as compared to 5,167 boys. Ministry of Women and Child Development has also received positive feedback from adoption agencies and other stakeholders regarding the new adoption guidelines.

According to the year-wise figure of in-country adoption of girl child provided by the ministry, 2,846 girls were adopted in 2012-13 against 1,848 boys. In 2013-14, it was 2,293 girls against 1,631 boys. 2,300 girls were adopted in 2014-15 in comparison to 1,688 boys.

"There has been an increase in the demand for girl child for adoptions. It is very encouraging to know that more and more people are coming to adopt girls," a senior official of Central Adoption Resource Authority said.

While the number of children with disabilities or special needs placed in inter-country adoption are 170, 242 and 214 during 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 respectively.

"Ministry had received positive feedback from adoption agencies and other stakeholders regarding the new adoption guidelines mainly on adoption procedure, roles and responsibilities of various agencies and authorities, timelines involved in the process of adoption," the official said.

According to the revised adoption guidelines that came into effect from August 1, 2015, the process was brought under the new IT-enabled integrated system called 'CARINGS', bringing all child-care institutions of the country into the new system.

The Ministry also recently relaxed rules for adoption for certain categories of parents including those who have lost their child to sickness or accident and those want to adopt children with special needs.

The total number of in-country and inter-country adoptions were 5,002 for the period 2012-13, 4,354 for 2013-14 and 4,362 in 2014-15. However, the child sex ratio, which shows the number of girls per 1000 boys between the ages 0-6, is 918 according to 2011 census.

The government has started initiatives like 'Beti Bacho Beti Padhao' in 100 worst districts to encourage girl child, which according to the officials have shown significant improvement.

"The programme is showing good results and there has been improvement in the sex-ratio in districts like Haryana," the official said.

PTI