Adoption racket? Karnataka hospitals 'selling' babies
Adoption racket? Karnataka hospitals 'selling' babies
The Karnataka Child Protection Commission has been receiving some complaints about hospitals illegally selling children for adoption, while the Adoption Coordination Agency (ACA) has stopped getting children from hospitals.
The agency, which is the official body for finally placing children for adoption, has asked the government to book hospitals for trafficking if children are given away without following procedures and legalities as per the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956.
"Not just that, families/parents who take children directly from hospitals can be booked for kidnapping. Even if it is family adoption, it must be cleared by the Child Welfare Committees. Every rule must be followed," says ACA chairperson Aloma Lobo.
KCPC chairperson Nina Nayak has written to the health and women and child welfare departments to ensure that hospitals compulsorily surrender abandoned children to adoption agencies. "We have been receiving complaints about nursing homes and hospitals involved in illegally handing over new-born babies of unwed mothers to couples wanting to adopt children."
A nursing home in Hanumanthnagar is said to have demanded Rs 20,000 from a registered agency to hand over an abandoned baby. Shockingly, when the agency visited the hospital, the child was missing and the hospital said it didn't have any child.
Again, last month, a hi-tech hospital in Udupi had kept 19 children for over a year. A week after they were questioned, all children had left the hospital. On investigation, the commission found that one of the hospital authorities had floated an NGO to place the children up for adoption. "During inquiry, they confessed that mothers who preferred not to take low-weight birth children or children born out of wedlock often sold them to the hospital for huge sums of money," says Nina Nayak.