April 12, 1999
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ANDHRA PRADESH Nobody's Babies Lambada girls are fair and have sharp features. Reasons why they are being illegally sold to foreigners under the guise of adoption. By Amarnath K Menon
The Lambada believe that the birth of a girl, especially the first child, is bad luck. An archaic superstition which should have been buried aeons ago, it's worked marvellously for some agencies. They buy baby girls -- mostly newborns -- from the tribals for less than Rs 2,000 and then sell them for up to Rs 2 lakh to foreign buyers under the guise of adoption. In several cases, the babies are "booked" as soon as pregnancy is confirmed -- if it is a girl, the infant is sold. "Foreigners prefer Lambada girls because of their fair colour and sharp features," explains B. Mangilal Nayak, a member of the five-man committee appointed by the Lambada community to probe adoption malpractices in the state. The Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) has authorised six NGOs in Andhra Pradesh to identify children and arrange adoptions. In 1995, the Central Government came up with an elaborate procedure for adoption in a bid to thwart any malpractice. Before giving up a child to an adoption agency, the parents have to sign a document relinquishing their claim. After a three-month cooling off period -- during which the child could be taken back by the family -- the agency contacts the Voluntary Adoption Coordination Agency (VACA) in the state or identifies potential parents from its own list. If VACA finds no suitable Indian adopters, it may clear the search for foster parents from other countries. All documentation relating to the child -- including the passport -- have to be scrutinised and cleared by the appropriate government agencies. In practice, though, official agencies tend to go by the NGO's word. And that is where the scope for sidestepping legal requirements and forging documentation lies. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has instructed the police and the Women and Child Welfare Commission to review all orphanages in the state immediately. The police have already pinpointed two -- apart from Buds Blossom, for which Kiree negotiated the baby sale -- which are guilty of buying and selling children as well as forging adoption documentation. Among the first to be trapped by the police was Pastor Sankala Peter Subbaiah, director of the Good Samaritan Evangelical Society and Social Welfare Organisation, an NGO that runs a home in Hyderabad. Since January 1998, Subbaiah has sold at least 10 baby girls to people from the US, the UK, Belgium and Denmark. Altogether, he has procured 60-odd children from tribal colonies in four districts and a juvenile home in Jaipur. The infants are kept in a two-storeyed house in Mahendra Hills, with 32 maids working in shifts and an in-house doctor to monitor them round the clock. Next to be raided were two creches belonging to Action for Social Development (ASD), an NGO run by N. Sanjeeva Rao which has 172 infants (including 10 boys) awaiting adoption. Beginning 1991, Rao has sold at least 73 babies to foster parents in the US, Spain, Germany, Australia and Norway. Three years ago, ASD was blacklisted by CARA following similar complaints of selling children. Rao was back in action before too long. Subbaiah and Rao have been taken into police custody but the issue isn't likely to be resolved soon. The biggest hurdle the police faces is proving the crime because in most cases agencies ask for the money as processing and documentation charges. "Our hands are tied because of the law. We can only book them for forgery and cheating," says Additional Director General of Police (Crime) Bharat Chandra, who is investigating the case. There is also a political dimension to the case: Subbaiah is a member of the Chittoor District Congress Committee and was suspended as soon as the police raid on the Good Samaritan Home became public. He now claims that the entire exercise is a conspiracy to keep him out of the assembly elections since he is considered a "sure winner"from the Satyavedu constituency. For his part, Subbaiah is convinced that he has done nothing wrong. "We have saved the lives of babies who may have become victims of female infanticide. We use the little extra money we get to provide milk, food and clothes for the children while they are at the home," he says. What happens to the girls once they are sold is anybody's guess. By law, new parents are required to send periodic progress reports to the agency for at least three years. But when the children are sold, there is little or no follow-up, raising suspicions that they are being bought for illegal purposes such as organ transplants. "Only a detailed enquiry can establish the facts clearly," says state Home Minister A. Madhava Reddy cautiously. That may be too late for some Lambada babies. |
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When Kiree told
the police she had helped an agency in Hyderabad buy three baby girls from the Lambada
tribe, the illiterate Adivasi woman didn't realise the magnitude of the scam she was
exposing. Acting on her information and tip-offs from a tribal colony in Nalgonda district
from 150 km from Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh Police recently uncovered a lucrative
adoption racket which flouts all societal laws and makes a mockery of gender justice. 
