Newindpress

Mangalore, Jul 31: ‘Adoption Co-ordinating Agency (ACA)’ in every district is the next logical step to ensure that business of adoption remains, as it should be, a non-profit venture.

These reflections of district Child Welfare Committee (CWC), which would soon be documented and submitted as memorandums to Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) and state government are enough indications that despite controls adoption is a lucrative business, particularly in coastal region.

There are seven adoption co-ordinating or placement agencies in Bangalore. The only adoption agency outside Bangalore is in Mangalore. CWC members admit that Nirmala Social Welfare Centre (NSWC) in Ullal, a few hospitals and orphanages which enjoy a monopoly make rules that suit themselves.

“Many of these rules are in violation of CARA guidelines,” says a member on conditions of anonymity. According to CARA guidelines, CWC must be informed of any abandoned baby that is handed to an ACA for care and protection.

An abandoned baby discovered near KSRTC bus stand in Bejai was handed over to Women Police station in Pandeshwar who in turn handed it to the placement agency. “NSWC violated CARA guidelines and kept CWC in dark about the baby,” CWC sources told this website's newspaper.

CWC had made a surprise visit to the centre in Ullal and found many new born babies in creche. The nuns running the institution had claimed that the babies were delivered in a hospital attached to the centre. Some of them were left behind for temporary safe-keeping.

Many unmarried mothers from Bhatkal, Karwar, Shimoga ‘relinquish’ their babies to the centre and nuns make no efforts to identify the father of baby in their documents. When CWC quoting a CARA guideline insisted that omission of father’s name was illegal, NSWC stopped sending documents.

An orphanage on city’s outskirts has accommodated about 12 orphans from Manipur in violation of norms. Udupi CWC had issued summons to a hospital in Udupi directing them to hand over 14 babies in hospital for adoption. “Many hospitals keep children without any authorisation,” sources stressed.