New Delhi: The central government has ordered all states to immediately inspect child-care homes run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity across the country.
This is an outcome of the recent allegations of child trafficking and illegal adoption in a child-care home run by the Charity in Jharkhand that was reportedly involved in selling three children for money and giving away a fourth child.
Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi on Tuesday issued these instructions to the state governments.
Taking cognisance of the recent cases of illegal adoptions carried out by Missionaries of Charity in Jharkhand, the Centre ordered immediate inspection of the child-care homes run by Missionaries of Charity all over the country
On Monday, Maneka had asked all state governments to ensure that all child-care homes get registered and linked to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), the country’s apex adoption body, within a month.
The mandatory registration of child-care homes and linking to the CARA has been provided in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 which came into force more than two years ago.
Since December last year, approximately 2,300 child-care homes have been linked to CARA, but about 4,000 are still pending for linkage.
Gandhi expressed displeasure that even in the 2,300 institutions that have been linked to CARA, the children available in these institutions have still not been brought into on the adoption system.
According to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, there are 2,32,937 children in all child-care homes in the country.
