Girls, first choice for adoption

Girls are the preferred choice for people opting for adoption in comparison to the boys in the country, even as the government struggles to improve the skewed sex-ratio. 

According to the yearwise figure of in-country adoption of girl child provided by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2,300 girls were adopted in 2014-15 in comparison to 1,688 boys. In 2012-13, 2,846 girls were adopted against 1,848 boys and in 2013-14, it was 2,293 girls against 1,631 boys. “There has been an increase in the demand for girl child for adoptions. It is very encouraging to know that more and more people are coming to adopt girls,” a senior official of Central Adoption Resource Authority said. 

“Ministry had received positive feedback from adoption agencies and other stakeholders regarding the new adoption guidelines mainly on adoption procedure, roles and responsibilities of various agencies and authorities, timelines involved in the process of adoption,” the official added. 

As per the revised adoption guidelines that came into effect from August 1, 2015, the process was brought under the new IT-enabled integrated system called ‘CARINGS’, bringing all child-care institutions of the country into the new system. 

The Ministry recently relaxed rules for adoption for certain categories of parents including those who have lost their child to sickness or accident and those want to adopt children with special needs.

The total number of in-country and inter-country adoptions were 5,002 for the period 2012-13, 4,354 for 2013-14 and 4,362 in 2014-15. 

The government has started initiatives like ‘Beti Bacho Beti Padhao’ in 100 worst districts to encourage girl child, which according to the officials have shown significant improvement. “There has been improvement in the sex-ratio in Haryana,” the official said.

The number of kids adopted in the last three years 

2014-15     2,300       1,688

2013-14     2,293       1,631

2012-13     2,846       1,848