India still not open to adopting children with special needs

Even as the world celebrates the National Adoption Week between November 14 and 21, it has once again, thrown light on the grim reality of India's obsession over fair and 'perfect' children.

Most couples prefer waiting to adopt a child of their choice – at times, one who looks like either parent – instead of adopting children with special needs.

Special needs children include those with weak organs, those carrying HIV, having hepatitis, Thalassemia, which requires frequent blood transfusion, or any other serious medical condition.

Strangely, Indian natives settled outside the country are far more open to adopting such children, as compared to their local (resident) counterparts.

Still, defying the trend, a Mumbai-based family adopted a girl with multiple medical problems two years ago. With the family's support and care, the child, who is three years old now, is 95% cured of her medical problems, and is leading a close-to-healthy life now.

Borivli-based cardiologist Dr Mandar Shah and his wife Priya Shah didn't have second thoughts while adopting 13-month-old Anushka from city adoption agency Balasha Trust. This year, only one child with special needs has been adopted from the Trust.

Dr Shah, who has an elder, biological son informed: "Anushka had a hole in her heart and had a severe respiratory infection that would lead to septicaemia (whole body infection). It is a life-threatening condition and she was put on ventilator support twice."

Elaborating on Anushka's medical condition, he said: "The hole was repaired in an open heart surgery, but when we met her after that, she was in an extremely fragile condition. Her respiratory infection was persisting and she was weak. However, we knew that she would be fine once she has a family to take care of her." Dr Shah added that his family's support was crucial for that.

Like the Shah family, another couple in Aurangabad, had last year adopted a girl, who was suffering from a milder form of Developmental Dyslexia, a condition which can lead to problems while walking. She was adopted from Matunga-based agency Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption.

Riya Singh (name changed), the adoptive mother of Anuja (name changed), has a biological child who is elder than Anuja by 13 days. About Anuja's adoption, Singh said: "Anuja was 16 months old when we brought her home last year. We are sad to know that she was 'rejected' twice before, just because of her condition. Today, she is doing absolutely fine."

However, such positive cases are few and far between, for barely a handful of children with special needs are this fortunate.

Records till 2013, provided by the Federation of Adoption Agencies, an umbrella organisation covering 19 agencies in the state, shows that in 2011, 2012 and 2013, only 10, 12 and 12 adoptions of children with special needs took place in the city respectively. This was in contrast with adoption of 37, 50 and 24 special needs children outside the country from the city, respectively.

In a country, where thousands of children are waiting to be part of a family, 200-250 families wanting to adopt children are always on the waiting list at any given time, primarily because they are not open to adopting special needs children.

Sunil Arora, director of Bal Asha Trust said: "It is difficult placing such children with Indian couples. They don't realise that if these children are given the love and protection of a family, they often recover faster."

He added: "Some of the parents are financially not well off. So, they don't want to incur extra expenses on the child's treatment. Such children easily get citizenship of the country they are going to, which shows that other countries are more receptive to them."

Last year, Bal Asha Trust, had placed an HIV+ child with a couple in the US.

In 2013, another adoption agency, which preferred to remain anonymous, placed a girl, who had meningitis, in France. In her case, a permanent tube had to be inserted from her brain to her stomach. "She was adopted by a couple in France. The mother, an Indian, happened to be an adopted child from Mumbai," the adoption-in-charge of the agency informed dna.