Orphanage funds foreign junkets of govt officials

KATHMANDU, Nov 29 - Nepal Children’s Organisation (NCO), also called Bal Mandir collects US $ 300 from each prospective adopter wanting to adopt a Nepali baby. However, it appears that this money ultimately goes towards the funding of foreign trips of a minister and his entourage.

According to sources, NCO has to fork out this sum to bear the cost of travel for a bunch of government officials who every year fly to foreign shores on a mission to monitor the situation of adopted children living abroad with their foster parents. The Mandir then relies on donations to support the orphans since the government does not provide any funds.

Considering this as a wasteful exercise, the then Sher Bahadur Deuba government had halted the practice but the present government has revived this tradition for which there is no adequate reason.

"We have nothing to lose from the visit since our expenses are borne by the funds from the Bal Mandir, which is actually donated by foreign couples wanting to adopt the child," says Prachanda Raj Pradhan, member of NCO, who returned recently from Italy on a monitoring visit.

A four-member delegation led by Renu Kumari Yadav, Minister of State for Women, Children and Social Welfare returned from their monitoring trip in Italy ten days ago.

More than a week after their arrival from Italy, the team is running behind schedule to submit its report on the state of adopted Nepali children.

"Nepal is the only country to monitor the situation of orphan children being adopted by foreign couples and nurtured in their country," says Pradhan.

When asked about the relevance of such visits, he said, "The monitoring is expected to stop the likelihood of abuse and exploitation of adopted children and would check a possible violation of their rights in future." The government sends the monitoring team to around 10 countries where Nepali orphan children are adopted by foreign couples. Such visits tale place two to three times a year for which the NCO has to bear all the expenses.

According to Pradhan, the team had visited the orphans’ households, met with their foster parents, inquired on their education and health status and met with high-level Italian officials during the seven-day long trip.

But a similar job is done free of charge by the child placement agencies every six months, according to sources at the NCO.

About 60 to 70 orphan children are adopted every year from the NCO alone for which a prospective couple shells out US $ 300 to the organisation as monitoring fee. The fee, which comes to thousands of dollars every year, is spent on monitoring the situation of the adopted children abroad.

According to Kiran Siwakoti, member-secretary of the adoption committee under the Ministry of Social Welfare, an estimated 100 orphans leave Nepal every year after they are adopted by foreigner couples.

The monitoring fee, then paid by prospective couples would amount to approximately US $ 30,000 a year.

According to a NCO source, it has no authority to use this fund since it is used completely by officials on foreign trip.

NCO pays US $ 500 as allowance to the delegate during their stay in a foreign country and pays for airfare and other expenses that incur in the round trip. Italy followed by Spain tops the lists of countries adopting more orphans from Nepal than any other country. Others in the lists include France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and the USA, according to NCO.

"One of the children we met cried when he knew that someone from Nepal had come to meet him," said an official who visited Italy recently for monitoring the adopted children.

"The child was scared that we might bring him back to Nepal and he wept," he said adding that the children adopted by foreign couples, are leading a better life abroad than what they were earlier leading in Nepal."