The Bombay High Court recently allowed a surrogate mother to abort her 24-week foetus, as the foetus had numerous heart abnormalities and was expected to require multiple surgeries if born. The petitioner had entered into an agreement with a Pune-based couple, for carrying their baby. She had, however, approached the court after a routine check-up and screening had revealed serious defects in the heart of the foetus. The court had then referred her matter to a medical board, consisting of doctors from the BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital, Pune. This board had confirmed that the foetus indeed had several cardiac abnormalities. Having perused this report, Justice Bharati H. Dangre had thereafter sought permission from the intended parents, in view of the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case. "It is informed by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the team of doctors who examined the surrogate mother is made aware of the risk involved and the procedure to be complied with. However, this is a peculiar case where the petitioners before the Court are also joined by the intended parent, since the child is to be conceived by applying the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). "In such circumstances, it would be appropriate to obtain the consent of the intended parents and they are appraised of the report which is tendered today," the court had directed. During the next hearing, the intended father was present in court, and consented to the abortion in view of the medical report. Allowing the petition, the court then ruled, "In such circumstances, since the expert team of doctors comprising the Heads of various departments have opined that there are multiple cardiac complication in the baby and that the pregnancy be terminated, this Court grants permission to terminate the pregnancy of the petitioner no.1."

https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/bombay-hc-allows-surrogate-mother-to-abort-24-week-foetus-with-consent-from-intended-parents-read-order-141814

Subsidiarity Made Simple: Understanding the Hague Convention’s Subsidiarity Principle

BY: CHAD TURNER

ADOPTION ADVOCATE NO. 127POSTED JAN 01, 2019

Subsidiarity Made Simple: Understanding the Hague Convention’s Subsidiarity Principle

BY: CHAD TURNER

Shareable Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14DrtI3yloevw9usg9ORzjIb9HwCqzpAK

ROOT SEARCH BY ADOPTED CHILDREN: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES by Dr. Jagannath Pati, Deputy Director, CARA (Indian Central Authority)

Many people think of the issues that take place before and during an adoption, but fail to realize that it is important to anticipate and understand the issues that may come up after you have brought a child into your family. Adoption is an emotional experience. It is also a physical experience, a biological, and a psychological experience. Post Adoption Services shall refer to psycho-social and support services provided to the adoptee, adopter and the biological parents, popularly known as the adoption triangle, by a professionally trained social worker and/or other discipline e.g., psychiatrist/psychologist, etc., after the adoption is legally completed.

Children need some knowledge of their heritage to foster self-esteem later on in life. Long-term studies have shown that children whose heritage was celebrated in their adoptive families by and large grew up to be healthy, self-respecting adults.The Case for Transracial Adoption International adoptions presents unique challenges in securing accurate and truthful background information and history on individual children. Differences in culture, language, terminology, and the competence of medical resources all profoundly affect this process.

The access to information and the quality and reliability of information varies widely country by country. From countries where programs are well established and sophisticated, child information can be very complete and available. Routinely orphanages, institutions or hospitals that are all under the authority of appointed government ministries hold this information. The range of cooperation on the part of these authorities is often irregular and inconsistent (http://www.holtintl.org/ethics.shtml).

Guiding principles/Policies

Mission République de Moldavie et Roumanie (janvier 2019)

En janvier 2019, EFA a effectué une mission en République de Moldavie et en Roumanie. S’il n’y a aucune adoption internationale dans ce premier pays et très peu dans le second (les adoptions internationales sont autorisées uniquement pour les personnes d’origine roumaine), il s’agissait avant tout de comprendre leur système de la protection de l’enfance et plus particulièrement la place qu’y tient l’adoption.

Les défis auxquels ont à faire face ces deux pays sont similaires en ce qui concerne la protection de l’enfance et la désinstitutionnalisation des enfants placés. Les progrès y sont considérables même si les différences entre les villes et les campagnes restent importantes.

Cette mission a été l’occasion de présenter le fonctionnement d’EFA aux autorités de ces deux pays, d’envisager les perspectives possibles en matière d’adoption internationale et, pour la Roumanie, de comprendre également le système mis en place pour la recherche des origines. En effet, dans les années 1990, un nombre important d’enfants roumains, devenus adultes depuis, ont été adoptés et peuvent aujourd’hui entreprendre une démarche de recherche des origines.

The TV2 documentary "The Danish children from India" may give rise to a number of questions about adoption from the Shejar Chhaya orphanage and an investigation that the Appeals Board launched in 2014. Here you can see our answers.

Briefly about the process

• 2005 AC Børnehjælp terminates the cooperation with Shejar Chhaya due to a lack of development in the quality of the work.
• 2014 Media coverage of problems with adoptions by Shejar Chhaya from 2004 to 2008.
• 2014 The Danish Appeals Board initiates an investigation into Danish adoption cases from the orphanage in the period from 2004-2005

Have we done enough on the matter?

Our possibilities as a supervisory authority to assess whether there have been irregularities or unethical conditions with a Danish organisation's former partner are limited when the collaboration - as in this case - has ended several years ago.

Mumbai: Two children from Chembur orphanage die under mysterious circumstances

The Chembur orphanage. Pic/Rajesh Gupta

In a shocking case that came to light, two kids from a private orphanage in Chembur died under mysterious circumstances. Both the kids died on consecutive days. Six children from the facility complained of dehydration on December 25 after which they were admitted to private hospitals, where the two kids — one was five months old and one 10 months old — succumbed. Now, Govandi police have registered an accidental death report.

All the children are from Bal Anand Orphanage at Ghatla. The facility houses around 52 children (up to 18 years). DCP (Zone 6) Shahaji Umap informed, "Four kids are undergoing treatment at the moment; three are admitted at Zen Hospital and one at Kohinoor Hospital.

All the kids admitted are below the age of one year." Post-mortem was conducted at JJ Hospital, where the preliminary cause of death is considered as dehydration. In both the cases, tissues have been preserved for examination. "We are finding out what they were fed before the incident took place," a source said.

2 babies die of gastro in city orphanage

TNN | Dec 30, 2018, 05.00 AM IST

Printed from

MUMBAI: Two babies of Bal Anand Orphanage in Ghatla, Chembur, have

died of acute gastroenteritis and dehydration and four others are

The Government is contemplating to amend J&K Justice Juvenile (Care & Protection of Children) Act 2013 by introducing a draft Juvenile Justice Bill 2018 through Department of Social Welfare. One of the amendments relates to lowering of juvenile age from 18 years to 16 for criminal liability. According to J & K Juvenile Justice Act 1997 (unimplemented so far) juvenile means a boy or girl who has not completed age of 16 /18 years respectively. Various age tags stand prescribed by precedent or law for different people or positions to consider them for approval or negation. For voting purpose the age is gender neutral at 18 years. Legally for marriage of a boy it is 21 years and for a girl 18 years. These limits have been set after taking into consideration the physical and the mental maturity aspects of the genders to decide their representatives in constitutional/other bodies and be able to share the responsibilities of parenthood to maintain a reasonably balanced political & social order. Age for marriage is elastic as even the below 16 couple can have marital results but biology is totally different from psychology, psychiatry and brain sciences juveniles are more confronted with.

Indubitably the lowering of age will bring more juvenile offenders under the ambit of correctional mechanism. Does the mechanism deliver the intended results, suffers guarantee of certainty as jackboot policy cages body and not the mind or emotions to hold manifestation. They need schooling, psychological and in some cases psychiatric orientation which we perennially lack drastically. The amendment is feared to create more problems than solving. The lowered age will widen the catch-net dragging more and more children to trial courts from the repository of lodging houses denying them access to the reformative & the rehabilitative interventions under the Juvenile Justice Act. This may tend to harden them prematurely to argumentative and animus state. While locking up them in the prisons for adults they shall be exposed and tempted to the adult world of crime rendering them irreparable. If Government readies itself for shouldering the pain/cure of these incidental offenders efforts should be made to reach the source such tendency sprouts from. Make laws, rules & regulations to create an atmosphere that would help eliminate or reduce the youth impairment. Lowering the age will not wipe out the problem. The age should remain 18 years.

The draft bill, inter alia, proposes one more important provision of legalizing ‘ Adoption’ which was not in the earlier Act of 2013. The clause states, “A child in respect of whom an adoption order is issued by the court , shall become the child of the adoptive parents, and the adoptive parents shall become the parents of the child as if the child has been born to the adoptive parents, for all purposes, including intestacy with effect from the date on which the adoption order takes effect and on and from such date all the ties of the child in the family of his/her birth shall stand severed and replaced by those created by the adoption order in the adoptive family.” The draft further says that, “provided that any property which has vested in the adoptive child immediately before the date on which the adoption order takes effect shall continue to vest in the adopted child subject to the obligation, if any. attached to the ownership of such property including the obligations, if any , to maintain the relatives in the biological family.” The bill also provides for having ‘ Specialized Adoption Agencies’ in the state for the rehabilitation of orphans, abandoned or surrendered children through adoption and non-institutional care , ‘State Adoption Revenue Authority’ to facilitate adoption and frame regulations on adoption and related matters as may be necessary from time to time.

It is to recapitulate that in Muslims, which is the majority community in J&K , the practice of adoption is not in vogue by precept except by a thin precedent and that too within blood relations. There is a lucid pronouncement in the holy book of the Quran that adopted children cannot be named after their adoptive parents or be heir to inherit the property in a manner the biological children do. The intention is that heir-ship does not drift away from the genuine biological heirs to non heirs not entitled to it naturally. However, to accommodate destitute, orphans, needy, poor, disabled, abandoned, surrendered etc, provisions of paying zakat, oushur (1/10th) and creation of baitul-maal have been made mandatory, making testacy upto 1/3rd of the total property suggested and giving alms/charity encouraged in a number of verses in the same Book. Experiencing the fate of beggars & the beggar/leper homes , the only two observation homes, from some time past and the drug de-addictions centres now, the proposal of adoption needs to be dropped and turned down as has been done by the Law Department during 2013. The best way for redressal is through the Department of Social Welfare itself which has an age old experienced net work upto grass root levels. The department if provided with required funds in time and monitored properly with ensured accountability and transparency can surpass in achieving very well the objectives of all adoption like initiatives.

However, if Government wants to go ahead with adoption, it should be intra-state and within the blood relations. To make the process state friendly the cases must be dealt in line with Notifications No.1-L/84 dated 20-4-1927, No. 13L dated 27-6-1932, Article 6 of Constitution of J & K and Article 35A promulgated through Presidential Order of 14-5-1954 under Article 370 (1) of Constitution of India. To ensure transparency cases should be allowed only after registration, scrutiny and authentication by the appropriate Hon’ble judicial authorities after vetting these like conveyance deeds based on genuine revenue records of the state subjects. Besides, the provision for adoption should include a clause that no law/ amendment would be passed that would attack special status of J & K as apprehended. Moreover, proposal for effecting any amendments should be invariably put on outer-net to gain feedback for better outcomes. The J& K having its separate independent constitution and special status must make its own laws , sans imitations, catering to its distinct needs.