FOR a country of 11 million people, Belgium has an unusually large number of adopted Indian children.
Among the many reasons, there is the old link of Belgian nuns and priests who have worked in Indian orphanages for many years; there is the reality of more people travelling to India and being aware of the number of children, especially girls, available for adoption.
There is also the fact that there are not many children available for adoption in Belgium. And since priority is given to childless couples, it is almost impossible for couples with just one child to adopt within the country. Also, according to Belgian law, natural parents continue to have rights on an adopted child.
On the Indian side, the Ministry of Welfare's guidelines for adoption state unambiguously that foreign parents areto be given the last priority after Indian couples living in India, Indian couples resident abroad and a couple with one Indian partner. So, sometimes adoption can take up to 36 months. This long-drawn-out procedure involves a series of thorough inquiries and submission of reports and finally an order in a court of law. Weighed in favour of the child's interests, the Ministry of Welfare's blueprint may make the process long and complicated, but it is essential nonetheless.
바카라 웹사이트Says Mon Van der Biest, who has been through the process thrice: "It is good to have a strict system. It shouldn't be too easy for people to adopt." This way, he feels, only people who are sincere will actually go through with adoption.
One of the agencies recognised by the Belgian and Indian governments, Enfants du Monde in Liege, has been active in the adoption process since바카라 웹사이트 1970. "Our initial contact was through priests in Pondicherry, but today we work with orphanages in Chennai, Mumbai, Pondicherry, Delhi and Calcutta," says H. Bertrand, its president who has adopted two Indian girls. Just over the last decade, Enfants du Monde has placed as many as 116 Indian children, making them the largest number from any country for the same period.
"Sometimes parents ask specifically for children from India," says an employee of Enfants du Monde, "and about 80 per cent of the time they ask for girls. The percentage of people who ask for a boy or have no preference is very small."
Most of the adoptions have been successful, but there are times when things go wrong. Sometimes a child has had to be taken out of a family and placed in another. Bertrand recounts one case where an adopted girl's Indian family started making financial demands on the adoptive family. As these demands grew, it was the girl herself who realised what was happening and put an end to it. "This one case made us really cautious," he adds.
But even this cloud had a silver lining, as the girl actually chose her Belgian mother over her natural one. "But such cases are extremely rare," says Bertrand. "There are many more successful adoptions than unsuccessful ones."