“When a woman gives birth to a baby, is she allowed a choice?” NPR reported that instead of providing adoption services, the sisters will turn to special needs children within the country who are still orphaned. The lack of such a system has given adoption agencies and orphanages leeway to make it harder for certain people to adopt, the AP reports.
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“Our rules only allow married couples to adopt”, Sister Amala explained, saying the sisters are concerned about the moral upbringing of the children who are adopted by single individuals, rather than a mother and a father.
The move is in response to India’s new adoption laws, which allow single, divorced or separated people to become adoptive parents.
There are estimated to be between 20 million and 30 million orphans in India, but just 4,000 children were adopted past year.
“It is clarified that the earlier guidelines of 2011 also provided that single parents can adopt a child and these provisions have been retained in the 2015 guidelines”, said the official. An illicit and unregulated adoption trade is meanwhile booming while other prospective parents are turning to China to adopt.
However, it is reiterated that the new guidelines, prepared after an elaborate consultation process, have to be followed by all child care institutions involved in the process of adoption.
The new rules are created to increase the number of adoptions in India, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi told local media. Sources said that the ministry had changed its mind about consultation process and would not be writing to the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) to try and convince them.
He confirmed: “The bishops endorse the decision of the Missionaries of Charity”, and said that the Church will discuss the guidelines and potential consequences. “They will have to leave the child under the care of someone who is not a parent”, said Sunita Kumar, an MoC spokeswoman.
These incidences have caused the department of Women and Child Development (WCD) to express that if The Missionaries of Charity do not respect the new guidelines, the government will be forced to transfer children out of their care and into the care of orphanages that do follow the new guidelines.
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“It’s the rule, and they will have to abide by it”, Veerendra Mishra, secretary of the Central Adoption Resource Authority, said of the new regulations.
