NRIs v/s Indians: Adoption Agencies Favor International Parents

Bangalore: Maharashtra is one such state in India where most of the child adoption agencies are first processing the applications of foreigners and NRIs for adoption, despite having 1,100 potential Indian adoptive parents on the waiting list,  disclosed a recent investigation carried out by the Maharashtra State Child Protection Society (MSCPS). This investigation shows how adoption requests were being processed across the 70 specialized adoption agencies in the state, out of which 24 prospective parents were qualified to process for international adoptions, as reported by Neha Madaan for Times of India.

MSCPS has come across agencies that gave more preference to the highly beneficial international adoptions by keeping the Indian applicants on hold. As per the sources, agencies charge $5000 from adoptive parents who live abroad as compared to 40,000 charged from Indian prospective parents.

Further, it was noted that there are some agencies that still undertake international adoption by sending children to the licensed agencies as they are not authorized to process the adoption. Records also revealed that about 1,200 children are there in such specialized adoption agencies where 500 are legally free to be adopted.

The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) guidelines directed that adoption with the Indian parents within the country should be given more preference than inter-country adoptions. But as stated by the officials from the women and child development department, on an average 9 out of 10 files submitted to the adoption recommendation committee (ARC) show that there were no efforts from the end of the specialized adoption agencies to process for in-country adoptions.

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