WHEN INTERNATIONAL ADOPTIONS GO WRONG

2005

Chennai police arrested a gang of child traffickers which was supplying children to the Malaysian Social Services, a Chennai-based orphanage, which would then place them in inter-country adoption. Members of the gang were found guilty of stealing children from slums.

2010

Australia suspended its adoption programme with India on charges that many shelter homes in India, including the ones aided by the government, were involved in child trafficking.The ban was lifted in August 2018. According to Australian media, it will commence will small numbers.

2011

CBI filed a charge-sheet against the managing trustee of Pune-based orphanage Preet Mandir in connection with child trafficking. According to the CBI, the managing trustee of the orphanage charged extra money from adoptive parents apart from violating adoption rules.

2017

Adoption racket busted in West Bengal. The state CID acknowledged the existence of a huge network of NGOs, nursing homes, doctors and middlemen dealing in illegal adoption and baby trafficking. The Darjeeling district child protection officer was arrested in the case.

2018

India suspended the operations of the American adoption agency involved in the adoption of Indianborn Sherin Mathews who died in the US in October 2017. Sherin was adopted from an agency in Bihar. Her adoptive parents are awaiting trial for her murder.

2018

A Spanish couple abandoned a 13-yearold adopted Indian girl alleging that the Indian adoption agency (based in Bhopal) misled them about the girl’s age. When the girl got her periods, the couple discovered her real age. She is currently living at a children’s home in Spain.