Rescued children fight diseases, face a future of uncertainty
Monday, April 5, 1999 Rescued children fight diseases, face a future of uncertainty HYDERABAD, APRIL 4: Colour photographs of brown children flanked by their new foreign parents adorn the walls of N Sanjeeva Rao's air-conditioned office in Gandhinagar, Hyderabad. A few yards away, small, undernourished children lay huddled in groups in a single room, fighting chicken pox and respiratory problems while Rao waited for foreigners to adopt them.
A week after the police raided the creches of two self-styled NGOs in the city, busted a child export racket and arrested Rao and Peter Subbaiah, the kingpins, five children have already lost the battle. And 50 are in hospitals.
After the death of five children, allegedly due to lack of medicare, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today ordered that the children be shifted to corporate hospitals in the city.That does not spell end for the sufferings of the children. They may still have nowhere to go. According to a spokesperson of Gramya, an NGO working among the tribal women in Nalgonda, the parents may not readily accept them as they can't affordthem. ``The reunion can be possible only after the government provides proper material and monetary benefits to the parents,'' she says.
Miles away from their natural parents, lying in rooms that breed diseases, these infants mirror an inhuman tale of greed and callousness. And beyond that lies a not-so-unfamiliar story of a people caught in the web of poverty and misery, who are forced to sell their own children for a few hundred rupees. The end of the racket began when the Nalgonda police arrested Keerie, a tribal girl, and Margaret Samyogita, both ``social workers'', at Halia on the charge of ``purchasing infants.''
Following a tip-off from Nalgonda, the Hyderabad police raided the Good Samaritan and Evangelical Welfare Association's office-cum-creche located in the posh Mahendra Hills in Secunderabad and rescued about 56 children, mostly infants in the age group of two months to six months. Organising secretary of the Association Peter Subbaiah, a Congress activist, was arrested on March 29. A daylater, 172 children were rescued from the ASD's creches located at Gandhinagar, Chikkadpally and Malkajgiri, and Rao was arrested on charges of preparing forged documents.
In both the centres, girls account for more than 90 per cent of the inmates. The racket rocked the Assembly, forcing the government to order a CID probe. There are six adoption centres in the state and officials were ordered to verify the claims all organisations.
During interrogation, Subbaiah and Rao reportedly produced affidavits ``signed'' by parents, giving their children in adoption to couples within and outside the country. Inquiries revealed that most documents were forged and thumb impressions of office attendants put instead of parents. Investigators said the organisers would recruit young ``social workers'', mostly women, and send them to the tribal belts. They would make friends with locals and induce them to give their children for adoption to childless couples abroad.
Insufficient income forced parents to the trap. The``social workers'' purchased infants, mostly girls, for rates ranging from Rs 750 to Rs 2,000. They were, in turn, paid Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 by the organisers. Inquiries revealed that both Subbaiah and Rao overstepped their permitted limits and violated the rules prescribed for adoption process by the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) of the Government of India. They managed to secure CARA permission and obtained visas through forged documents.
Now the state has to restore the rescued children to their parents. Five of them have already died, 50 are in hospital. Most who were lodged in the Mahendra Hills and Gandhinagar creches, got to chicken pox and respiratory problems. After the police arrested the two, the burden of looking after the children fell on the Women and Child Welfare Department. However, the officials allegedly took little care to maintain a hygienic environment. Doctors suspect frequent visits by outsiders might have helped spread the diseases.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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