INTER-COUNTRY ADOPTION: INTERRELATION OF LAW AND SOCIETY AND NEED OF A LEGISLATION IN INDIA (By- Gauri Chandrakant Khule)

Adoption is a process for legally changing parental responsibilities from biological parents or the persons or institutions that act as caregivers of children to the adoptive parents, thereby providing the child the care and warmth of a family. While the best interest of the child remains at the core of adoption, it also provides an opportunity to people to become parents. There are also parents who want to do some good by adopting a child. Although the system of adoption has been in existence since ancient times, the concept attained increasing importance in modern times.[1] There is emergence of legal adoption at international level. Legal adoption is necessary for the betterment of the child. Legal adoption is binding and provides an extended security environment for the adopted child. It safeguards the status of the child in the adoptive family. Therefore, law is necessary to achieve the welfare of the child as well as to regulate the process of inter-country adoption.
Inter-country adoption being an emerging phenomenon needs more focus, because the child is going to place in completely new culture and atmosphere. The subsidiary principle is the key to making inter-country adoption a service for children rather than for prospective adopters. It prioritizes care of the child in the family of origin before all other arrangements and relegates inter-country adoption by unrelated cares behind appropriate care in the child's home.[2]
Child trafficking, child prostitution, etc. are some of the offences which are being committed against the child. Children being a vulnerable class of the society need more focus. Such offences can make a negative impact on society as the children are the asset of the society. Law having a binding force can change the situation and the best interest of the child can be achieved.
The objective of CARA guidelines is to give a comprehensive and precise framework for theinter-country adoptions. The guidelines provide a sufficient mechanism to govern the inter-country adoption to achieve its objects, but there are some lacunas in it. Therefore, the researcher wants to highlight some points which need focus. The guidelines do not have much force as the law. Therefore, the procedure given in the guidelines can be overlooked by the foreign agencies, prospective parents, Indian agencies, etc. Therefore, there should be a legislation governing theinter-country adoption. The legislation can serve the best interest of the child as it is having the binding force on the society.As we have seen that, the CARA guidelines lack in provisions regarding penalty in case of any mischief to the child. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate penal provisions. Awareness programmes should be arranged for the people who want to give their child in adoption or who want to adopt a child but do not have any knowledge about the legal procedure for the adoption.
The Supreme Court has given some measure to be taken in case of inter-country adoption. “CARA should consider the option of appointing a panel of Psychologists, Lawyers as well as NGOs in all the States so that the Child Study Report and Home Study Reports in the case of domestic adoptions, if applicable, in India are prepared scientifically in a time bound manner. The local police as well as Anti Trafficking Unit of the Ministry of Home Affairs should be asked to give their response to the Adoption application within a strict time frame. If response is not received from statutory/government authority within the time-frame prescribed, it should be presumed that said authority has no objection to the adoption."[1]
Strict provisions for the post adoption status of the child should be strict. It is not that the objective of welfare is being criticized but that it will not be achieved by the manner in which the government is currently pursuing it. The state is laboring under the carefully constructed illusion that the only method by which welfare can be achieved is by placing the child in its own socio-cultural milieu. The ground norm of welfare of child has been replaced by this construct called socio-cultural milieu.[2] Thus, the researcher through this research study has aimed to examine and explain the relationship between law and society; its effect on the social transformation focusing on the emerging need to regulate the inter-country adoption by enacting a legislation.