He claimed that the committee’s report has been sent to the law ministry, denied there had been delay and insisted the revised guidelines would come into effect soon. When contacted, a top CARA official said that an expert committee had been constituted to frame stringent guidelines for inter-country adoption. The latest data on CARA’s website shows that in 2009, 666 Indian children were placed with families abroad. The monitoring should go on till the child attains 18 years.” All of this is urgent. But what happens to the child after that, no one knows. Pawar, who works on issues related to inter-country adoption in Maharashtra, says, “The existing norms call for monitoring of children adopted by families abroad for five years after the adoption. Activists like Anjali Pawar, of the NGO Sakhee, say this is badly needed. The court asked CARA to create stringent inter-country adoption guidelines, as well as a system that makes foster parents financially liable if they seek to revoke an adoption. Significantly, the Bombay High Court has used Manisha’s case to ask CARA, India's nodal adoption agency, to plug gaps in the system. There are no statistics of the number of Manishas all over India - abandoned children, who were adopted overseas and then turned out like a troublesome puppy. If Manisha is indeed fine, she is one of the luckier ones. Counsellors say Manisha has potential to do well in say, the hospitality sector. Apart from attending a special school that is helping overcome her learning disability, she is undergoing therapy with a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Staff at the home say the child is endearing and participates in every activity. So how has all of this left an innocent child, flown across continents and rejected twice-over - once by her birth parents and then by her adoptive father and mother? Her guardian, Mascarenhas says Manisha seemed to be settling down when she visited the home in December 2010, she is now trying to find a foothold in life. The court has sought sixmonthly updates on Manisha’s progress. The high court said the American couple who adopted Manisha cannot be absolved of responsibility and they are still liable for financial support for the child's treatment and needs. She was admitted to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, her adoption revoked and her guardian now is Nigama Mascarenhas, director of the FWC. The Bombay High Court, which has been hearing the case, was informed that the link adoption agency (in the US) had placed Manisha with another family, but things didn’t work out and she was repatriated to India in June 2008. Manisha’s case wound up in the Indian courts. But within months, the American foster parents were complaining that Manisha had behavioural problems and insisting they would keep her young sister, but not her. The girls were cleared for adoption in April 2006 by the Central Adoption and Resources Agency (CARA), the nodal body for adoption under the Union ministry of women and child development. The FWC, coordinating with an adoption agency in US, completed the formalities. Soon enough, an American couple expressed interest in taking both sisters. In 2005, the CWC declared that the children could be adopted because no one had come forward to claim them. Both children were placed with an NGO, the Family Welfare Centre (FWC), by the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). In 2003, she and her sister were found abandoned at Mumbai railway station. Should it be this way? Almost all her young life, Manisha has been a victim of the system - and all its faults. Rejected and abandoned all over again, Manisha was sent across the seas and has been in the children’s shelter from early 2010. But soon enough, they were unwilling to keep her, blaming Manisha’s newly apparent hyperactivity, mood disorders and depression. Six years ago, Manisha was adopted by an American family from a centre in Mumbai. She is the helpless victim of inter-country adoption gone terribly wrong. She lives in a home run by an NGO in Gurgaon for abandoned or abused children or those with special needs.
But Manisha is not a regular teenager and hers is no ordinary story. The adults in contact with her say she is polite and disciplined and is always ready to help anyone in trouble. Manisha (name changed) is 15 and brighteyed.
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