LilMtnCbn
10-17-2004, 07:52 AM
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1061569,0015002000000000.htm
Adoption blues for non-Hindus
Sushmita Bose
New Delhi, October 16
IN INDIA, if you are not a Hindu, you cannot adopt a child and be a legal
"parent". All you can be is a "guardian". Effectively, legality takes a
backseat: if you die intestate, your "adopted" child has no legal rights.
What's playing spoiler is a 105-year-old Act -- the Guardians and Wards Act
1890. Hindus (Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs included), on the other hand, are
governed by the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956, which is surprisingly
forward-looking, and even has provisions for single, non-minor women who want
to adopt.
"A movement towards a uniform adoption procedure started in the 70s, but every
time the Bill came to Parliament, it got shot down because members of the
minority communities didn't want anything impinging on their personal laws,"
says Leila Baig, secretary, Coordinating Voluntary Adoption Resource Agency,
the body that governs adoption centres in Delhi, adding there have cases where
non-Hindu families had been unaware of this distinction and had given up on
adoption once they realised that they couldn't be "legal parents".
Foreigners are able to tweak things to their convenience - after obtaining
"guardianship" here, they seek legal rights once they get back to their own
country.
The Juvenile Justice Act (dealing with the rehabilitation of delinquent or
abandoned children) was amended in 2000 to take care of this discrepancy -- but
has been put in cold storage.
According to Vikas Pahwa, advocate, Supreme Court, Section 41 of the Act
dealing with "adoption of neglected children" was included to "widen the scope
of the act". "Community is no bar under the JJ Act," he says. But, says Baig,
since the Act does not specify legal rights for the child, it is being
fine-tuned in the face of opposition.
As Ila D. Hukku, Director, Development Support, CRY, says, "Legislation must
provide to the adopted child the same legal status as to a child out of legal
wedlock."
It is also felt that the minorities, like the rest of Indians (Catalysts for
Social Action, a Pune-based NGO that specializes in adoption, say that Indians
living in India adopt less than 2,000 children per year), are not too keen on
adoption. For instance, Himadri De, administrator of the Church of North
India-run Shishu Sangopan Graha, says, "In the last 10 years, only two
Christian families have adopted children from us, so we are happy to give our
kids to non-Christians."
In a country teeming with more than 44 million destitute children, adoption
doesn't seem to be a logical way out - a fact endorsed by our law-books.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Adoption blues for non-Hindus
Sushmita Bose
New Delhi, October 16
IN INDIA, if you are not a Hindu, you cannot adopt a child and be a legal
"parent". All you can be is a "guardian". Effectively, legality takes a
backseat: if you die intestate, your "adopted" child has no legal rights.
What's playing spoiler is a 105-year-old Act -- the Guardians and Wards Act
1890. Hindus (Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs included), on the other hand, are
governed by the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956, which is surprisingly
forward-looking, and even has provisions for single, non-minor women who want
to adopt.
"A movement towards a uniform adoption procedure started in the 70s, but every
time the Bill came to Parliament, it got shot down because members of the
minority communities didn't want anything impinging on their personal laws,"
says Leila Baig, secretary, Coordinating Voluntary Adoption Resource Agency,
the body that governs adoption centres in Delhi, adding there have cases where
non-Hindu families had been unaware of this distinction and had given up on
adoption once they realised that they couldn't be "legal parents".
Foreigners are able to tweak things to their convenience - after obtaining
"guardianship" here, they seek legal rights once they get back to their own
country.
The Juvenile Justice Act (dealing with the rehabilitation of delinquent or
abandoned children) was amended in 2000 to take care of this discrepancy -- but
has been put in cold storage.
According to Vikas Pahwa, advocate, Supreme Court, Section 41 of the Act
dealing with "adoption of neglected children" was included to "widen the scope
of the act". "Community is no bar under the JJ Act," he says. But, says Baig,
since the Act does not specify legal rights for the child, it is being
fine-tuned in the face of opposition.
As Ila D. Hukku, Director, Development Support, CRY, says, "Legislation must
provide to the adopted child the same legal status as to a child out of legal
wedlock."
It is also felt that the minorities, like the rest of Indians (Catalysts for
Social Action, a Pune-based NGO that specializes in adoption, say that Indians
living in India adopt less than 2,000 children per year), are not too keen on
adoption. For instance, Himadri De, administrator of the Church of North
India-run Shishu Sangopan Graha, says, "In the last 10 years, only two
Christian families have adopted children from us, so we are happy to give our
kids to non-Christians."
In a country teeming with more than 44 million destitute children, adoption
doesn't seem to be a logical way out - a fact endorsed by our law-books.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
