Adoption agencies looked at with suspicion following news report on 'baby-selling'

They are the abandoned of the earth. Each year, an incredible 11.5 lakh Indian babies are dumped like human garbage in the backstreets and by-lanes of the country. Unwanted and unloved, their future extends into a long and dark tunnel with just one, barely discernible glimmer of hope at its end-adoption.

But last month, even that faint glimmer was abruptly, if temporarily, snuffed out following grossly exaggerated reports in the Daily Mail, a London daily, that a Calcutta-based adoption agency was selling babies outside the country. Though the report was later refuted, the damage had been done. Suddenly, adoption had become a bad word and adoption agencies exposed to the harsh glare of suspicion and even hostility.

In the sparkling clean clinic of the International Mission of Hope, the agency mentioned in the Mail report, four-month-old Baisakhi hovers at the edge of death. She suffers from a serious ailment that requires open heart surgery. Cherie Clark, executive director of the mission, had arranged for an American family in Oregon to adopt the baby and also arrange to have the necessary surgery performed.

But by last fortnight, hopes of Baisakhi making the life-saving trip had receded drastically after the mission found itself the target of a reluctant governmental inquiry and Indian authorities have suddenly become chary of permitting babies to leave the country.

Defensive: Tragically, it has also succeeded in tarring all the adoption agencies with the same brush. Officials of adoption agencies have now gone on the defensive. Says Lalita Krishnan, president of the Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW), a Delhi-based agency: "We send children abroad to be adopted by foreigners as a humanitarian act. There can't be any question of making a profit."

The Mission of Hope clinic, and (inset) Clark: Unwarranted publicity

Tara Ali Baig, head of the SOS village, the biggest adoption agency in the country, was more explicit: "Prove one charge of irregularity against my organisation," she stormed, "and I'll resign immediately."

The chorus of denials was, however, diluted with oblique hints that there are possibly one or two adoption agencies, particularly in Calcutta, that have exported babies purely for profit. But all of them agree that the proportion is miniscule and has succeeded in giving everybody in the business a bad name.

The name has stuck despite the fact that the Mail report has been found to be absolutely baseless by governmental inquiries. Sheila Kaul, minister of state for social welfare, admits that "there is absolutely no truth in the report appearing in the Mail. There are enough safeguards, against Indian children being adopted by foreign parents. I am afraid some people are spreading such reports only to sensationalise the issue."

Yet, agencies like the Mission of Hope have been badly affected. Says Cherie Clark: "Previously we used to get abandoned babies from nursing homes but they have now stopped. They told us they were afraid because of all the adverse publicity." In fact, over the years, a number of governmental inquiries have been instituted into adoption agencies and in almost every case no irregularities have been proved. But every now and again an anti-adoption scare erupts, like it did last month, and the entire process of adoption comes to a grinding halt.

Shock Waves: In Calcutta, an organisation run by noted Bengali litterateur Maitreyee Devi, is still feeling the shock waves from the Mail report. "My staff, who have been with me for a decade, are now feeling a bit hesitant as doubts have crept in about the whole practice of adoption," says Devi.

Sunil Prakash, general secretary of the Mission of Hope adds: "Previously, we had no trouble getting passports for the children. But now, things have got very difficult." Even the West Bengal Government is unhappy at what it describes as a unnecessary attempt to create hostility against organisations involved in humanitarian work.

An adopted Indian baby in Germany: Finding a family

The Indian Government insists that "no instance of sale of foreign babies to foreigners has come to the notice of the ministry concerned". Which does not mean that sale of babies for profit is non-existent. But almost all the agencies contacted and investigated in the states where adoption figures are the highest, reveal very little scope for racketeering and a stringent, well-defined procedure for adoption that extends well beyond the date the child finally arrives in the foster parents' home.

Currently, there is no specific law for adoption of an Indian child by a foreigner. Foreign nationals are granted children for adoption under the Adoption and Guardianship Act (1890) which contains provisions under which the courts are competent to entertain applications for adoption from foreigners. But the better-known agencies insist that they take stringent measures to ensure that the babies in their care go into good homes and the antecedents of the foster parents are checked as thoroughly as possible.

The ICCW, for instance, lays down very definite procedures for adoption. All parents wishing to adopt a child from ICCW, register themselves with the organisation by paying a fee of Rs 50. They are then sent a set of adoption forms with a recommendation by the Child Welfare Board or a recognised welfare agency of the country to which the foster parents belong.

The forms are then returned accompanied by birth certificates of both the parents; declaration of willingness to adopt; declaration of income with tax returns for the last four years; special power of attorney in the agency's name; medical certificates of both the parents and marriage certificates. All documents are notarised and authenticated by the foreign ministry of the country concerned and the Indian embassy in that country.

The ICCW charges the parents Rs 3,000 towards court fees after the child has been assigned to a particular set of parents and maintenance charges of Rs 60 a day from the date of acceptance of the child by the parents till the child leaves for its new home. Even after adoption, the new parents are required to send a regular report every month countersigned by a child welfare agency of the country which later is made into a quarterly report sent till the child is five years old.

Archaic Act: Most reputed agencies follow the same procedures but since the Act is an archaic one there are apparently enough loopholes existing to encourage short cuts and, in some case, irregularities.

For instance, in Tamil Nadu, the courts demand a cash deposit of Rs 18,000 to be held as bond till the child attains maturity. Kerala courts demand Rs 10,000. Under the Act, children meant for adoption from a particular state have to be granted permission by the courts of that state.

With Kerala and Tamil Nadu courts demanding high deposits, many children are quietly transferred to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh where no deposits are required, and their domicile records altered to prove that they belong to Andhra. Last July, Justice B. Lentin of the Bombay High Court censured a Bombay lawyer, Betram D'Souza Shenai, for fudging the domicile certificates for children from outside the state.

But these are minor transgressions in the sense that they are usually done to speed up the adoption process which is abnormally long. Says Manita Chandy, secretary of Ashraya, an adoption agency in Bangalore that has been in the business for the last seven years: "It is not that malpractices do not exist. They do.

But if taken in relation to the entire volume of work, it is a very small percentage, though to some it may be more newsworthy than a government denial that such practices exist. So far it has never been proved that children are being taken abroad for sexual exploitation, slavery or for medical experiment."

Well-adjusted: Reports from countries like Sweden and West Germany also indicate that a majority of the adopted children adjust well to their new environment and receive the same care and affection that they would from regular parents. Harsha and Vandana, two children adopted from Bombay by the Neidermeyers of Cologne, have grown up in Germany, speak the language fluently and were it not for their colour, could pass off as healthy, happy German children.

Saroj Patel, secretary of the Mahipatram Rupram Ashram in Ahmedabad, one of Gujarat's best-known adoption agencies, says she was touched by the "love and affection showered on children adopted by Swedish parents" during a recent visit to that country.

Another case is that of Kakoli who was adopted by a Swedish woman from Bangalore in 1977 from Anantha Sishu Vivas, the oldest orphanage in Karnataka. Kakoli was afflicted by polio as a child and was adopted when she was three by Maria Alborg, a trained nurse who lives in Visby, an old Gothic town in Gottland. Alborg sends back regular reports to Bangalore accompanied by pictures showing her adopted child's progress. Thanks to the medical treatment she has been receiving, Kakoli has improved tremendously.

Unfortunately, last month's stink raised by theMailand its accompanying cacophony in India means that there are many Kakolis and Vandanas who may not get out of India to a better life than they can ever hope for here. The real tragedy, however, is that the people who are making the most noise about the so-called baby selling racket would hardly be willing to adopt abandoned babies themselves.

The same people who raise not a whimper at female infanticide, at babies being dumped on garbage heaps, at children deliberately maimed and disfigured by beggars to elicit more sympathy. Indians, as the reaction to the Mail story once again demonstrated, are the most self-righteous people in the world. But for all the wrong reasons.

SHRADHANANDA ANATHALAYA: VENAL TRADE

For 55 years, the Shradhananda Anathalaya has brought up orphans, destitute and discarded babies at its ashram in central Nagpur. Thousands of children have been placed in homes around the country and many have been married off and settled in jobs.

Since 1974, when the Government first gave its approval for adoption by foreign parents, up to 30 children each year have been handed over to the guardianship of families in Sweden, Holland and a handful of European nations.

Sudden Controversy: But the calm was abruptly shattered when Shradhananda Anathalaya got embroiled in a sudden controversy about its foreign adoptions. Disclosures about a "baby trade" by a disgruntled trustee were promptly picked up by the Nagpur press, and blown up into a raging and often irrational controversy.

Social activists began a heated debate on the merits pf adoption, the Hindu Mahasabha added a religious angle to an already confused issue, and the press clamoured for an impartial enquiry. Finally the Maharashtra Government on August 28 ordered Deputy Inspector General of Police S.C. Malhotra to investigate the affair. Among the charges to be probed were:

• that 230 infants from the orphanage had been "sold" to foreigners, mainly Swedes and Dutchmen;
• that Shradhananda Anathalaya superintendent Shamala Abroal, in collusion with the trust's president, had amassed large amounts of money and property as a result of the sale of babies;
• that a well-organised network consisting of Abroal, Bombay lawyers, and Indian agents of foreign adoption agencies ran a regular and lucrative racket in the "baby trade".

Preliminary inquiries have not revealed any irregularities. Said Malhotra: "The two case-studies given to us show that adoptions have been done according to the law. But we are still to go into details of the 150 children and the connections between the ashram, foreign agents in Bombay.and the lawyers, so it's too early to pass any judgements.

One lead Malhotra will follow is that of a Bombay advocate, Bertram D'Souza Shenai. Shenai and his wife Colleen are both advocates who depend almost exclusively on adoption cases for their livelihood. In addition, the lawyer has built up a network for effecting adoptions.

He collects children from orphanages and hospitals around the country, brings them to Bombay, where they are lodged at his Kindercare Centre, and manipulates their domicile certificates so that the guardianship proceedings can be pushed through in the Bombay High Court. Reportedly included in his sources for orphans is Shradhananda Anathalaya.

Commenting on the lawyer's "welfare activities" in a recent judgement on a petition by the Indian Council of Social Welfare, Justice B. Lentin of the Bombay High Court remarked: "The admitted facts reveal a grisly pattern of events manifold in their ramifications... To equate nobility of purpose with what had the overtones of a well-organised and lucrative business, is a mistake."

Allegations: Meanwhile, the controversy was heating up on another front. Bent on stopping what she called a "moneymaking racket", Dr Pushpa Pradhan, secretary of the Shradhananda Anathalaya trust, filed a petition with the Charities Commissioner demanding an enquiry into the ashram's financial affairs.

Stating that trust President Sumatidevi Dhanwate, Shamala Abroal and three other trustees had defrauded the orphanage and made huge profits from the adoptions, she asked that they be dismissed and the records siezed.

Arguing that Abroal and her confederates had "surreptitiously" given about 230 "inmates" of the orphanage in foreign adoption without consultation or sanction from Shradhananda's general body, Pradhan's petition states that this was done in order to make large amounts in illegal donations which were then siphoned out of the trust coffers.

"Most of the adoptions were... done by Smt Abroal surreptitiously as also suspiciously", stated the petition, "... to persons of foreign origin whose bona fides were never verified by the trust and its governing body it is therefore evident that the respondents have been manipulating the affairs of the trust and swindling the finances."

According to Pradhan, who is associate professor of microbiology at the Nagpur Medical College, Abrol and the trustees received illegal donations as consideration for giving the infants in adoption. An example is cited in the petition: while donations from Holland shown in the orphanage records totalled roughly Rs 1 lakh, enquiries made with World Children, the Dutch adoption agency, revealed that they had actually donated more than Rs 3 lakh.

Said Pradhan: "And this default of Rs 2 lakh is nothing compared to the total. The vast majority of the children actually went to Sweden, and there are no records kept of the amount of money received from those agencies." Pradhan charges that Abroal has built up substantial property from the adoption money.

However, the police and Charity Commissioner's enquiries were still incomplete, and the charges unproved. Abroal hotly denied the allegations: "My 18 years of dedicated service have gone up in smoke because of this controversy. This woman is just jealous because I was the one who regularly went abroad to place children in foster homes, and she never got a chance to go. So she has fabricated these charges against me."

- Chander Uday Singh in Nagpur