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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Adoption plan: choose child, then meet -Ananya Sengupta

Adoption plan: choose child, then meet -Ananya Sengupta

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published Published on Jul 19, 2015   modified Modified on Jul 19, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Prospective parents looking to adopt might in future have to choose the child they want as their own by going through photographs, with the government planning to end the practice of allowing them to meet several children before they take one home.

Under existing rules, prospective parents can meet at least three children - referred by an adoption agency - before they take a decision.

Draft guidelines the women and child development ministry has come up with say this practice is often traumatic for a child. According to the proposed system, parents will be able to view the pictures, profiles and medical details of six children shortlisted by the Central Adoption Resource Authority on the website of the apex adoption agency, based on preferences they list in application forms.

"The prospective parents can see a child only after they have finished all the paperwork," said a ministry official.

According to the proposed guidelines, if prospective parents decide not to take a child home after meeting the child, they would go back to the bottom of the waiting list that has some 5,000 couples.

Now, if a prospective parent rejects three children referred to them by an adoption agency, they can see a child again in three months from the date the last child was shown to them.

The guidelines have also tried to address a not uncommon complaint - of prospective parents jumping the queue, often courtesy a hefty donation to adoption agencies.

The suggested rules say parents can see a child only after they have reached the top of the waiting list, based on seniority, the official said.

For domestic adoptions, prospective parents will get 48 hours from the time they reach the top of the waiting list to reserve the child and 15 days from then to complete all necessary paperwork.

For foreign adoptions, the parents will have 96 hours from the time they top the list to reserve the child and a month to come and adopt the child.

Among other new provisions is a plan to raise the age cutoff for prospective parents to 55 years from 45.

Sources said the decision to make the entire process - from registration to the final court decree - online was taken to make adoption not only transparent but also less stressful for children.

In many cases, officials recalled, children were paraded in front of couples although they didn't meet the preferences indicated by the prospective parents. "Unknown people coming and seeing the child leads to unnecessary psychological stress," the official said.

Sukriti Sundar, a Mumbai-based PR professional, recalled how the adoption agency she went to in Pune kept showing her older children although she had made it clear that her preference was for a younger child.

"They kept telling me there were no children available in the age group I wanted. I told them I was willing to wait. Then they started showing me older children, who they claimed were rejected because they were dark. I felt extremely bad," said the 28-year-old who is still waiting to bring a child home.

Bharati Dasgupta, of Catalyst for Social Action, an NGO that deals with adoptions in Maharashtra, said parents would have more options - "six instead of the usual three" - under the proposed system.

"Also, in most cases, the bonding with the child is likely to happen as the parents would be mentally prepared that the child they have selected will be their own. The question of rejection will not arise," she said.

Her only "concern", she said, was that in her experience, most parents remembered the child's first reaction to them. "That is the bond that will be missed."

The Telegraph, 18 July, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150719/jsp/nation/story_32474.jsp#.VaslGfk1t_k


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