‘Much more orphan kids may find US homes’

New Delhi, March 24: The US Senator Larry Craig is in Delhi, leading a delegation, to promote adoptions of Indian children by American families. Delighted to be able to ‘‘finally meet children’’, at the Delhi Children’s Welfare Association home, Palna, Craig said India has ‘‘greater potential for adoptions’’.

Talking to Newsline he said: ‘‘India is clearly underperforming to its potential.’’ Of the 21,000 foreign adoptions that take place in the US, more than 5,000 are from China and Russia. Only 350 Indian children get placed in American homes. ‘‘There is great potential but the process and system in place, in India, won’t allow adoptions to take place,’’ he said.

While lauding the efforts of the Indian Government to streamline the adoption process, he also emphasised, the need to bring in ‘‘timeliness’’ into the process, make laws more transparent and comprehensible.

Himself an adoptive parent, Craig emphasised that, ‘‘once a child is cleared for adoption, he/she should be made available to parents who want to adopt, whether within the country or outside.’’ Delays, in Craig’s view, only prove detrimental for the child in need of a home.

In India, a child has to be rejected by at least three Indian couples before it is cleared for foreign adoptions. As India is already a signatory to the Hague Convention on intercountry adoptions 2003 and the US is now in the final stages of becoming a signatory, the senator hoped that like India, the US would have a centralised adoption agency like CARA (Centralised Adoption Resource Agency). ‘‘Both countries under an international convention like the Hague Convention would have to ensure transparency in the entire process.’’ Most importantly, NGOs working in this area would have to establish credibility.

The Congressional Coalition on Adoption has 180 US Congressmen as members and is dedicated to improving adoption policy and focussing public attention on the advantages of adoption.

As part of his discussions with CARA, the delegation appreciated the clear effort by the courts in Delhi to accelerate the adoption cases that had been held up for more than eight months.

The senator while stressing on the need for more children in need of families to find homes, also recognised that adoption processes within India and the US needed to be legal, transparent with proper checks in place to prevent misuse.