Yahoo – AFP,
Trudy Harris, 3 July 2015
 |
A nurse
takes care of newborn children at Delhi adoption agency Palna, but the
facility's assitant director said fewer abandoned babies had been received
lately
amid fears some are being handed to criminals (AFP Photo/Money Sharma)
|
New Delhi
(AFP) - At a now-shuttered adoption agency on the fringes of India's capital,
kidnapped toddlers and newborns were being sold for about $8,000 each, no
questions asked.
After
stumping up cash, prospective parents would inspect the bewildered children at
the "Fastrack International" agency and take them home the same day,
according to police who raided the premises last month.
 |
Illegal
adoption is a thriving business in
India, where more than 100,000 children
are
reported missing every year (AFP
Photo/Money Sharma)
|
A ledger
seized during the raid detailed how 23 children had been sold in just a few
months and another 76 transactions were being negotiated, some of them
involving babies kidnapped from hospitals in other states with the help of
doctors and nurses.
Illegal
adoption is a thriving business in India, where more than 100,000 children are
reported missing every year, 15 every hour, according to government figures,
and activists insist the figures are much higher.
Although
many are given up by desperately poor parents in the hope of a better life,
others are snatched from hospitals, railway stations and big cities and
channelled to couples.
Experts say
prospective parents are turning to the black market because of long delays,
overcautious officials and complex rules of legally adopting in a country known
for its frustrating levels of red tape.
"Why
would you wait two years for a baby when you can just pay someone to get you
one straight away?" said Lorraine Campos, assistant director of Palna, one
of Delhi's oldest adoption agencies and orphanages.
"Criminals
have realised there is money to be made by playing with people's emotions. And
there's a nexus involving officials."
Campos has
noticed a drop in recent years in the number of abandoned babies being brought
to Palna, a non-profit agency caring for some 70 children and registered with
the government. She fears some are being handed to criminals instead.
'Adopting
legally a nuisance'
Thousands
of children are thought orphaned and abandoned in India, although there are no
official figures. But only 4,000 were legally adopted in the year to March,
according to government data, down from 6,000 in 2012.
Maneka
Gandhi, the minister for women and child development, plans to overhaul the
"complicated" system to boost those numbers, saying parents waiting
years for children is "shameful".
Gandhi is
working to simplify the application process, including through a national
online tracking system, and a campaign to encourage more parents to use it.
"Adopting
them (children) legally is such a nuisance, so if we make it easier then people
won't go around pinching babies," she told AFP.
 |
The Indian
government is working to
simplify the application process and said
parents
waiting years for children is
"shameful" (AFP Photo/Money Sharma)
|
"For
every one registered adoption agency, there are 10 which are not (currently)
registered. We have no idea what they do," Gandhi said.
Pramod
Kumar Soni and his wife Pinki welcome the overhaul. In their two-year wait for
a baby, they said they were stonewalled by unresponsive officials.
After 12
years of medical tests and fertility treatment, the couple had turned to an
adoption agency near their home before giving up in despair, then finally
finding success at Palna.
"They
didn't have adequate resources, no documents on the children, no answers about
how long the process would take, what the process was or any kind of
transparency," Soni told AFP of their experience at the previous agency.
"They
only started to show any interest in your case if you had sources (in the
department) or influence," the 38-year-old consultant said.
"It
was really horrible," Pinki said, staring at their new two-month-old son
with his mop of black hair. Left in Palna's "stork basket", the
couple can soon take him home after more paperwork is processed.
Children's
activist Bhuwan Ribhu also applauds the new legislation, saying there is huge
confusion for parents wanting to legally adopt.
And the
lack of clear and enforced regulations for agencies means unscrupulous ones are
allowed to thrive where already vulnerable children are at risk of being abused
and sold for profit.
'Tip of
the iceberg'
"People
are simply scared of going ahead with the (legal) adoption process. It's also
hard to catch and prosecute organised crime syndicates and even harder to
convict them," Ribhu, who works with the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Movement
to Save Childhood) organisation, said.
 |
Palna in
Delhi is a non-profit agency
caring for some 70 children (AFP Photo
/Money
Sharma)
|
During the
Fastrack International operation, Pathak said officers posed as a couple who
were offered a physically healthy but "clearly traumatised"
two-year-old boy along with a swaddled newborn.
"The
boy has no idea where he comes from or what happened to him," Pathak said.
At the
agency's office, now padlocked by police, in a bleak block of flats in the
suburb of Dwarka, a neighbour says he saw a stream of people in recent months,
some carrying babies and small children.
"There
were couples, people of all ages. I asked and they said it was an NGO, a
charity," retired air force serviceman George John told AFP.
"There
was no reason not to believe them."
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