Deserted by parents, two Odia girls script success in Spain

Laxmi and Sagarika with their foster parent in Cuttack | Express By Express News Service

CUTTACK: Once their families had deserted them as they were girls. Now, they are leading a dignified life though in a different country. It has been a long journey of sweet and bitter memories for the girls who were adopted by a couple from Spain from city-based orphanage Basundhara.

While Laxmi of Paradip has been renamed as Spaniard Maria Laxmi, Sagarika has become Lope Nieto Sagarika. Laxmi is working as an administrative officer in a popular television channel in Spain after completing her education and 18-year-old Sagarika of Patulipank in Kendrapara is studying in a secondary school in the same country.

As per reports, Laxmi at the age of nine was engaged as domestic help in a doctor’s house at Mangalabag and tortured physically. She was rescued by an NGO and rehabilitated in Basundhara after her father and stepmother refused to take her back in 1999.

Spanish couple Antonio Hernandez Torres and Maria Cruz Sanchez adopted her in 2001. Similarly, Sagarika, who was rescued by another NGO at the age of six in 2007, was rehabilitated in the orphanage. She was also adopted by the Spanish couple in 2008.

Recapitulating their memories during a function held on the premises of the orphanage on Saturday, Laxmi and Sagarika admitted that they had faced some discrimination in Spain initially but they overcame the situation subsequently.

“I still remember my days at Basundhara. I used to pluck guavas from a tree on the orphanage premises and play with other inmates,” Laxmi said. Their foster parents who accompanied them said, “India has simpler adoption laws in comparison to many other countries.”

”