Children For Sale
For as little as Rs 3,000, impoverished parents sell their children to adoption centres and unscrupulous operators in Andhra Pradesh, who in turn earn up to Rs 3 lakh from foster families. A look at the people involved, the law and where the process went wrong.

Amma Turns Red
J. Jayalalitha's hopes for contesting the elections have been dashed with the rejection of her nomination papers. But this does not deter her from stepping up her campaigning efforts for the AIADMK and assuming an aggressive stance.

Past Tense
The muted reaction of the Government to the massacre of the BSF troops raises many questions. A look at the past skirmishes between the BSF and BDR gives an insight into what led to the heightening of tension at the border.

Coming To Life
With the end of state monopoly, private insurance companies are offering wider risk coverage and better customer relations.

Starting Over
It's been three months since nature shook Gujarat, killing over 30,000 and shattering dreams. Despite government promises and generosity of individuals, rehabilitation is still to touch the lives of many. The story in pictures.

COVER STORY: ADOPTION

Children On Sale

Trading in human lives finds another dimension as orphanages prey on destitute parents to run a thriving adoption racket

By Amarnath K. Menon

It sears the conscience. This is not a five-year-old girl speaking. Lalitha shakes her head with adult obduracy: she will not return to her parents. "They gave me away to an aunt who frightened me. Now I want to stay here with the others and play." On an adjoining bed lies Seema. "I want to learn ABC," she says, but there is no sparkle in her eyes.

Across the corridor in the state-run Shishu Vihar in Hyderabad, there are some who smile. Like the girl on a printed mat. A finger in her gurgling mouth, a wet smile on her drooling lips, she could be an advertisement for milkfood. "She is Shyamala," says Krishna Jyothi, supervisory officer. "Aren't these toddlers cute?" she asks, pointing to children lying on two-tiered cots in the air-conditioned room. Not quite. The babies are pale, their eyes puffy and starved of sleep. They have been constantly disturbed by a stream of VIP visitors who have come because they are "concerned".

Concerned? Here they are, unwanted and unloved by their mothers and fathers, invisible "for sale" signs hovering over their heads, some left behind to die by people fleeing police investigating the commercialisation of adoption. There's child marriage and female infanticide. There's also this. Lalitha, Seema, Shyamala and 200 others rescued from institutions with a question mark, up in the shop window, their souls commodified, a profit margin marked against their existence.

Since April 20, the Andhra Pradesh Government has raided five accredited placement agencies and unauthorised adoption centres only to realise that its actions could at best be called moral, not socially or legally just. For there are many who glance at the laws, dismiss them and continue to trade in lives. The NGO Action for Social Development (ASD) in Hyderabad, for instance, or the once-humble Kokila Home, now rechristened the John Abraham Bethany Memorial Home in the dusty town of Tandur bordering Karnataka's Gulbarga district.

There, mothers and fathers, their parental instincts numbed by money, collect Rs 1,000-3,000 for surrendering their children. The brokers contacting them on behalf of these errant institutions too get a percentage; adoption homes make a big profit, often in dollars. That is why unscrupulous operators are loath to give up the practice.

N. Sanjeeva Rao, a graduate in social work, director of ASD and a jailbird, is one such. A raid on March 28, 1999, led to the rescue of 113 children from the ASD home. Rao was arrested and incarcerated for 73 days. The licence to run his NGO was cancelled. On release, he began all over again. On April 20 this year, the law caught up with him again. This time there were 34 infants in his crèche. He was booked on charges of cheating, falsifying documents and records. Unrepentant, unabashed, Rao argued he had consent letters of the parents. He is confident of battling his way through court to get back his "inventory" because he cannot be accused of ill-treating the babies, having provided them a clean, comfortable and air-conditioned crèche.

Savithri, owner of the Bethany Home, is Rao's soulmate. The orphanage, which has offices in Hyderabad and Gulbarga in Karnataka, was a transit point for children on their way to Hyderabad, about 110 km away. The Karnataka Police got scent of the procurement and sale of 18 girls from tandas (hamlets) of the Lambada tribe in Gulbarga in March and traced them to Bethany. When they set out to pick up Savithri on April 6, she disappeared, leaving behind a sordid history.

MetroScape

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The brief for participants at
"Exhibit 'A' 2001" organised by the
200-member
Photographers'
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Looking Glass

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Calcutta Pub:
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