Delay in doing this could lead to very few adoptions taking place in India...

An affluent family walks into the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to surrender their child – Durga (name changed), for adoption and in two days, the child was transferred from the parents to the Specialized Adoption Agency (SAA) of the district.  Despite they are being highly educated working professionals in healthcare industry, they chose to surrender this child because the child has a medical condition that would require long term medical care, but the child would live a full productive life.

This child would be classified as a “Special Needs Child” under the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) guidelines which is a statutory body responsible for overseeing the adoptions in/ from India under the Juvenile & Justice Act (JJ Act).

As per the CARA dashboard on the day this article was authored, there are 2158 children available and out of which 1442 (66.8%) are classified as children with special needs and the remaining as normal (33.2%).  Some of these special needs children may never get adopted and if over a period of time, the SAA has all the children as ‘unadoptable’, it ceases to be a SAA but becomes a children’s home while receiving grants from CARA.  Apart from that, SAA would be at a loss of not knowing what to do when such an unadoptable child with special needs crosses the age of 18.

Although this above paragraph presents the plight of a hypothetical SAA, the numbers are genuine and if not addressed immediately, almost all the SAA’s in the country potentially run the risk of dealing with decreasing number of adoptions under the JJ Act.

So, what is the solution to fix this problem?  Process used for surrendering of children for the purpose of adoption needs to be reformed and such a reform can be undertaken under a banner called “Family Responsibility”.  United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which is a foundational document for JJ Act says the following in sub-article (2) of article 14: States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.  In JJ Act, sub-section (5) of section 3 says the following about the principle of family responsibility: The primary responsibility of care, nurture and protection of the child shall be that of the biological family.

In short, the above paragraph is stating that the primary responsibility of taking care of a child shall be one of the biological family and the state ought to provide direction when needed in fulfilment of child’s right.

CWC is the sole authority to receive the surrendered child (sub-section 60 of section 2) after convincing itself through counselling (sub-section (2) of section 35) that the physical, emotional and social factors are beyond the control of the family/ guardian.  But before receiving a surrendered child, CWC has one important responsibility and that is to ensure they expend every effort to keep the family together (sub-section (9) of section 30).  But in Durga’s case, she has special needs (she needs a long-term care but she will lead a full life) and what if the CWC doesn’t have the expertise to understand the complexities of special needs, how would they convince themselves that this medical condition is beyond the capacity of the family that has both healthcare professionals?

I suggest that under the provisions of sub-rule xii and xiii of rule 85 of JJ rules, DCPO be entrusted with the responsibility to form an advisory committee consisting of CWC Chairperson, District Disability & Rehabilitation Officer, Chief Medical Officer, DCPO and a well-connected NGO of the district to assist the CWC to make an informed decision and also to explore options to extend any state assistance such as sponsorship (if family needs) to ensure the family stays together.

By this, we are ensuring that the child’s right to a family is honored, and an institutional care is considered as a last option as stated in sub-section xii of section 3. 

The best place for a child is a home and we as a society ought to do everything to ensure that the child remains with the family at any cost.