Girl children favoured as adoption rises
Please do read this article and tell me why people are not asking these questions:
1. In a country with 11 million children on the street (UNICEF’s estimate that is considered a conservative one), why are only around 6,200 children placed in adoption?
The 200 number in the article is presumably only Andhra Pradesh, which has also has a bad reputation in adoption circles for the number of scams, resulting in a shut down of all adoptions for months.
2. Why are only 130 children legally cleared for adoption when there are a 1,000 couples waiting to be placed with a child? What is the number of children waiting for legal clearance to be placed in adoption at the same time?
3. When will we talk of the dirty secret – that there are children in government homes who aren’t ‘released’ to adoption agencies run by NGOs with CARA permission, regulation and monitoring (or placed in adoption by the government!)? Do we mention that government funds are distributed to government homes, with a per head calculation? Meaning 100 children in a home means more money coming to the home? A scheme that incentivises wrong, maybe?
4. What is surprising about ‘fat’ salaries of Rs. 50,000 a month? Besides the fact that this number looks bigger on paper than on currency with today’s prices, isn’t it the Rs. 5,000 per month number that needs to be looked at with more surprise? Plus with adoption definitely skewed towards the ‘fat’ter salaries, a family with Rs. 5,000 per month stands a chance only on paper to receive a child.
5. Even when it is clear from this article that there is a need expressed by people to parent, what’s up with the ‘healthy’/charity thread running through the article?
6. Are girl children really favoured when there are more girls available for placement in adoptive homes?
7. Notice that the only important question asked in this article is a post script. What is the government doing to ensure that more children are kept in the homes they are born in?
Articles like this discuss the issue a bit better – Daughters Unwanted. In this context, let us note that a few people recognizing that women are people does not show a ‘healthy’ trend. And that girl babies who actually make it to placement are those who survived when others were hunted in the womb or within hours of birth.
That we do what we’re supposed to does not require kudos. That parents of daughters not yearning for a son is not ‘noble’. It is normal!
