Adoption process need to made easy as tough process cannot help the childless couples

SHAKEELA ANDRABI

SRINAGAR: The burdensome process of adoption in a country wherein out of a population of three crore (30 million) orphans, only four thousand get adopted annually is not an appreciable date.
From wearisome paperwork to anomalies in government departments, the chances of orphans leading and surviving a healthy life gets questioned, which is a bone of contention in the judgment. Moreover, there is a stigma that hovers over adoption because it indicates infertility among the adopting couple.
Last year the Indian Apex Court in Temple Healing v Union of India¸ directed the Union Government to simplify the adoption process in India. This comes as a requisite decision considering the tough and long process of adoption
It has also been seen that that are some Irregularities in Adoption Governance and Process which result that there are lakhs of babies who are living an abundant life.
In Kashmir valley there are also approximately 2dozen of abundant babies in baby care homes .Most cases are come from LD hospital and in these cases mothers are herself minors.
Recently a 14-year-old girl was raped and impregnated by one of her relatives who is married and has kids. As per reports, parents of the minor were unaware about their daughter’s pregnancy and soon after their daughter complained about the pain and uneasiness. They brought her to the hospital where doctors confirmed her pregnancy after a proper examination.
This is not the only case, there are many other minor girls who have recently delivered babies at the hospital. Police have also registered FIRs in some cases. According to the official data at least 11 new born babies have been abandoned at the Child Welfare Centre Srinagar, of which, most of the cases are from LD hospital . A social worker at the child care help desk at Lal Ded hospital told the STATE TIMES Correspondent that all the abandoned babies are being taken care of by “our team .”She said that some new-borns are delivered by minors and other babies, mostly female new borns are being abandoned by their parents due to their gender. Another social worker at the child care help desk told that these cases of minors who had delivered babies come from different districts of the valley. “Mostly, recent cases are from Kupwara, Bandipora, Tral and Kulgam, Shopian. Few cases were from Srinagar also. We get such cases from other districts as well,” she said.
The officials said that some childless couples come forward and adopt these new-borns. ” If anyone wants to opt for adoption. Then the couple has to go through a proper legal procedure for it. Then only they can adopt these new-borns,” officials said.A senior doctor at the hospital told that gender discrimination, moral degradation are the reasons for the baby abandonment menace. Social worker said that “Shaffaq Azim Mattu is Superintendent, Phulwari – Cradle Baby Reception Centre, Srinagar, Mission Vatsalya (Child Protection Services), is the final authority for adoption process . shetold,we have two centres where we take care of these newborns , one is at Nowgam, Srinagar which has registered 11 abandoned babies and another centre is at Bandipora which has registered five abandoned babies.”
The child care desk revealed a shocking story, they said that all the process is going through the online system on CARA website ,but we are trying to make sure that the couple who want to adopt a child must be upto 40 years of age,and only doctors engineers,professors or high class businessman couples are appreciated.
The Supreme Court said that it is important to streamline the child adoption process in the country, as there are many young couples waiting to adopt, while there are lakhs of orphans, but the process is very tedious.
On April 11, 2022,the Supreme Court issued notice on the plea seeking a direction to the Centre for improving the number of adoptions in the country and also a direction to the Ministry of Women and Child Development to make adoption procedures simple, and digitising the registration of orphans.
The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) of India doesn’t have a department to follow up with prospective parents on these matches. In absence of a separate division to follow up, CARA lacks the means to check if these parents would be interested in adopting a child who does not ‘exactly’ meet the original specifications, leading to a sharp decline in domestic adoption as already noted by the Delhi High Court also while hearing a case.