Making a Child your Own
Making a child your own
| Indian couples looking to adopt a child want many conditions fulfilled, finds AYESHA MATTHAN. Differently-abled children are often left behind because of inadequate counselling |
PHOTO: AP
WHO’S REALLY TO BLAME? On the slightest pretext, Indian adoption agencies go all out to say that Indian parents are biased and discriminatory
“Male, below two-years, healthy, fair.” An adoptive parent is filling out a form at an adoption agency and these are the preferences she lists. In a society where adoption is considered a charitable gesture done by parents who adopt “as the last resort”, such parents are also deemed to be biased and prejudiced when it comes to selecting a child that is not biologically theirs.
Member of Karnataka State Council for Child Welfare (KSSCW), and a member of the Adoptive Parents’ Association (APA-Sudatta) Bangalore, Radha Nagesh says: “Indian parents only want infants as they do not come with psychological baggage.” An adoptive parent herself, Radha adds: “When it comes to adopting children of special needs, it is considered a social stigma. They just want a healthy baby who will change their lives forever, more so after a prolonged and difficult period of fertility tests.”
There is a common perception that Indian parents all want fair babies. Social workers/agencies are supposed to counsel adoptive parents on their final decision. Radha who counsels parents asks them, “If you had a biological child, what it would look like?”
Fifteen-year-old Pushpa, thirteen-year-old Joseph and nine-year-old Subhalakshmi had to wait for two years before they were adopted by American families from Ashraya Children’s Home. Founder-member of Ashraya Children’s Home, Shanthi Chacko feels that foreign countries are more open to adopting older children.
When it comes to caste, Aloma Lobo, president of the Karnataka Adoption Co-ordinating Agency, feel that though “couples who came forward to adopt in the last 20 years might have been caste-conscious; nowadays they are more open-minded and accepting”. Although Aloma believes that Indian couples do not even go to the extent of asking for the child’s date of birth or religion, Shanthi confirmed that she has had experiences of couples who are particular and often reject the child on the basis of chaste.
Aloma finds that though Indian parents never ask for mentally or physically challenged children, there “might be one stray case”. Radha, Shanthi and Aloma feel that it is the emotional, infrastructural and financial support that is given to inter-country adoptive parents that makes the difference.
But social activist Gita Ramaswamy who co-authored the study “On their own – A socio-legal investigation of inter-country adoption in India” with Anita Dhanda feels quite to the contrary. The study found that adoption agencies do not provide the necessary counselling and education when parents list out their preferences. In one case, parents listed out twenty-two requirements to an agency called Sofosh in Pune. After counselling, a child with 40 per cent ear discharge and deafness was adopted by this very family.
Dhanda and Ramaswamy concluded that “Instead of seeking out Indian adopters, agencies function on the basis of what is called the ‘Indian quota’. This means that agencies do only as many Indian adoptions (50 per cent) as the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) has made mandatory.
They feel that on the slightest pretext, Indian adoption agencies go all out to say that Indian parents are biased and discriminatory. They say that the pressure to be parents in Indian society and hence, to become a family is so burdensome that the basic objective is a selfish one.
In terms of physical defects, even something as minor as a harelip makes Indian parents quite selective. Chandra Thanikachalam, general secretary of the Indian Council for Child Welfare, Chennai (ICCW) says: “Parents will only adopt children with ‘correctable disorders’ such as a harelip.”
Aloma is a parent to three biological children and three adopted ones. The youngest is adopted seven-year-old Nisha who has Lamellar Ichthyosis, a genetic condition. Nisha is studying in the first standard in a school which is opposite the Lobo residence, in case of any emergencies.
Social activist and adoptive parent Shabnam Hashmi recalls when she adopted her daughter. “I went to several agencies. The first one just refused and told me that they don’t have a Muslim child! I was shocked. I didn’t know a child had religion.”
Director, Human Rights Law Network (Chennai), D. Gita narrated the case of Haseena. In January 2002, two-year-old Haseena in Hyderabad was about to be adopted by an American couple. The High Court found that Haseena was “misrepresented as having a deformed foot in order to procure the ‘necessary refusals to adopt’ by prospective Indian adoptors”. General Secretary, Tamil Nadu Adoption Coordinating Agency (TN-ACA), Rangashree Srinivas says, “Agencies try to convince us (ACA) that the child is unfit for Indian adoption.”
Withstanding society’s pressure on an average Indian couple to adopt the ‘perfect’ child and the unfortunate limitations on the true joys of adoption, one can only agree with Vidya Shankar, also an adoptive parent who affirms, “Adoption is (truly) a state of the mind.”
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