by Danish Raza Feb 20, 2013

That afternoon is indelibly printed in Saddam’s memory. He and his two-year- old sister Jabeen were playing in an auto rickshaw parked near their home in Washermanpet area of north Chennai. A man, who Saddam remembers, as “tall, short haired with a limp in his right leg”, appeared on the driver’s seat. “Next moment, I recall, he was maneuvering the auto-rickshaw through the alleys.” As the vehicle slowed down at a speed breaker, the boy, then four years old, jumped out. Watching the vehicle going afar, helplessly, he shouted non-stop, “Someone save my sister.”

Jabeen never returned. That was November 1998.

Six years later, Chennai police arrested two men, Sheikh Dawood and Manoharan, suspecting their involvement in a child trafficking racket. During interrogation, they confessed to have sold children to Malaysian Social Service (MSS), an adoption agency in Tamil Nadu.

Hundreds of children are victims of the overseas adoption racket in India. AFP.
Jabeen, as police found in MSS records, was adopted by an Australian family in the year 2000. She was one of the 100 children MSS had given up for adoption overseas. With a new name, fabricated history and an obviously uncertain future, the children were handed over to adoptive parents in the West, the organisation told police.

On Tuesday, child rights activists and families who have lost their children to overseas adoption demanded a stay on inter-country adoption until a child protection mechanism was put in place. They underlined the dark side of inter-country adoption even as Central Adoption Recourse Agency (CARA), a body under the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, is holding an international conference on adoption on February 19 and 20. (more…)