No application for inter-country adoption in 2011
17 October 2010
| No application for inter-country adoption in 2011 | ||
| ARJUN POUDEL The ministry has not received even a single application for inter-country adoption in 2011. The ministry had temporarily suspended inter-country adoption following reports of rampant irregularities in the inter-country adoption process. “The ministry received more 500 applications for inter-country adoption each year. But no application has been registered this year,” said Anandaram Pokhrel, secretary at the ministry. According to Sher Jung Karki, legal officer at the ministry, prospective adoptive parents have to now apply through the internet to adopt Nepali children. “They cannot visit Nepal to select children without the consent of the government,” he added. Adoptive parents need to submit documents permitting adoption from their respective countries and apply through registered adoption agencies. Earlier, they directly dealt with Nepali orphanages. The new regulation has hit the orphanages permitted to send children for inter-country adoption hard. “Out of 38 registered orphanages, only 29 have renewed their licenses, while others have shut down,” Pokhrel said. Before the suspension, the care centers and their agents tampered with documents and sent children illegally for adoption. Adoptive parents paid a huge amount to get the children of their choice. “Adoptive parents can now choose only gender and age,” Karki said, adding, “Family selection committee of the ministry now gives priority to children whose files arrive first to the ministry,” he added. The government has also fixed a fee of US $ 8,000 for inter-country adoption. The orphanages get only US $ 5,000 and the remaining amount goes to the state. The matching process now can also take up to six months before the children are handed over to adoptive parents. Karki said the government adopted stricter measures also to maintain transparency in the process of selecting children. The government took such a decision under pressure from international agencies, including the report of the Hague Conference. The report released by Hague Conference in 2009 pointed at a number of weaknesses in Nepali adoption system, including falsification of documents and lack of proper child protection system. The Hague´s study also found instances of children, who were not orphans, being given away for adoption by parents as well as orphanages. Nepal is signatory to the Hague Convention on child rights. Following the disclosure, the United States and some 10 European countries have also suspended adoption from Nepal, some officially and others unofficially. But these were not the only countries adopting Nepali children. According to Dharma Raj Shrestha, executive director of the Central Child Welfare Board, people from around 72 countries adopted children from Nepal in the past. Of late, even the US has shown interest to adopt orphans and children formally abandoned by families. The ministry is listing the number of orphans and abandoned children living in different child care centers.
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