Orphans ‘happy’ to go with Italian couple

6 November 2013

Orphans ‘happy’ to go with Italian couple

DC | Shilpa P. | 06th Nov 2013

Children Ullas and Anand with their guardians in a file photo.

Mysore: In a new twist to the case of the two orphans transferred to an institution in Bengaluru for adoption by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of Mysore without the consent of their guardians, it appears they are now all set to be given up for adoption to a working couple in Italy.

“It is difficult to find couples in India who want to adopt children over five , so we are giving them to an Italian couple who have agreed to adopt them,” said sources in the Vatsalya Charitable Trust, which has applied to the Bengaluru city civil court in Mayo hall for permission to go ahead with the adoption.

Meanwhile, the children Ullas and Anand, who are now seven and eight years old, refused to go to their aunt Neelamma and her husband Nataraj, who are their guardians, when brought to meet them by the Vatsalya Charitable Trust at a CWC meeting on Tuesday. Instead, they told the Deccan Chronicle they were happy to go to Italy with their new adopted parents.

Mysore CWC members also justified the move to give up the children for adoption, claiming they had called for objections through a newspaper advertisement on November 30, 2011 and prepared all documents required before declaring the children legally free for adoption.

Asked why the children’s guardians had been ignored although the CWC had their contact details and phone number, the members claimed the latest home study conducted on Saturday showed they were not closely related to the children.

Quizzed on why Ullas and Anand had been sent to a private institution in Bengaluru, the members claimed the Bapuji Children’s home in Mysore could not find couples willing to adopt both Ullas and Anand together.

Meanwhile, responding to the CWC’s claims, a distressed Neelamma, demanded,”If we were not the children’s guardians why would we have gone to the Mysore Deputy Commissioner and appealed to him to educate and rehabilitate them in 2008 after their parents died? Why would we struggle so much? Why did CWC members want our signatures for all procedures ?”

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/131106/news-current-affairs/article/orphans-%E2%80%98happy%E2%80%99-go-italian-couple