Dalit couple foils adoption of offspring
OM ASTHA RAI
KATHMANDU, Feb 24: After desperate searches, a downtrodden Dalit
family from Nuwakot district has retrieved its lost children, who were
nearly adopted by an American couple.
Rajan Nepali, 27, who works as a manual laborer in Kathmandu to feed
his family, had sent his children--son Kaushal, 7, and daughter
Karuna, 3, -- to the Helpless Children Protection Home (HCPH)
orphanage at Ranibari through one Basanta Raj Upreti, an acquaintence,
in 2008.
"I was addicted to drugs because of which my wife Maya left me," Rajan
said. "After she left, I was unable to look after the children. I sent
them to the orphanage, expecting that they would be taken care of for
some time." He was planning to take back his children once his wife
returned to him.
But things did not work out as Rajan expected. After some time, he
luckily saw his children's photos in a vernacular newspaper. An
illiterate man, he could not read what was written below the photos.
So he got someone else to read it to him.
Then to his utter surprise and dismay, he learnt that his children had
been put up for inter-country adoption.
The names of his children had also been changed from Kaushal and
Karuna to Dharma and Ahimsa. "I was ready to stay away from my
children for some time because of my poverty," he said. "But I was not
ready to lose them forever." By then, Maya had returned to him. The
two then tried to get back their children.
Rajan and Maya met Sabitri Basnet, who runs HCPH with her husband
Jitendra, a retired police inspector. They requested Sabitri to return
their children. But she somehow persuaded them to take back only their
son, Kaushal. "We were satisfied at getting back at least one of our
children," Rajan said.
Sabitri, meanwhile, continued with the process of handing over Karuna
for adoption by foreigners. A few months later, Carlos and Kyla
Romanach, an American couple, approached Sabitri's HCPH and adopted
Karuna as their foster daughter.
It was then that the Romanaches came to know that Karuna's brother
Kaushal had been reclaimed by his biological parents. After two weeks,
they returned Karuna to Sabitri, refusing to adopt a child having
biological parents. Meanwhile, Rajan and Maya had come to learn of
their daughter being adopted by the American couple.
Rajan and Maya again visited Sabitra. This time, Sabitri refused to
let them take back their daughter. Then they approached the Central
Children Welfare Board (CCWB) in Lalitpur for help. With CCWB's
intervention, Rajan and Maya finally got Karuna back.
Sabitri's story
Sabitri Basnet, 60, who claims to have been running HCPH as a social
service, says that Kaushal and Karuana were brought to her as orphans
by police on July 2, 2008. She produced a police document stating that
Kaushal and Karuna were found abandoned somewhere in Naxal. "I did not
know for sure that they had parents at all," she maintains.
Even if Sabitri is telling the truth, questions about her assertions
abound. Why did she not take Kaushal and Karuna to the Children Search
Center (CSC), which tries to find the biological parents before
allowing children to be put up for inter-country adoption?
Why did she hand Karuna over to foreigners after having sent her
brother back to their biological parents?
Some five years ago also Sabitri was in the news for sending the two
children of one Nirmala Thapa of Dhading, to America. Sabitri had
assured Nirmala that the children would be properly taken care of. As
in the case of Rajan, Nirmala learnt of her children being put up for
adoption only after seeing their photos in a newspaper.
Sabitri's HCPH is one of the leading orphanages involved in adoptions.
A former Baal Mandir employee, Sabitiri was the first to send children
abroad after the government lifted a ban on inter-country adoptions in
2008 following promulgation of a new set of regulations.
A year earlier, the government had banned inter-country adoptiond
following widespread allegations of malpractice.
Sources say that HCPH was initially not included in a list of
orphanages qualified to work on inter-country adoptions, which the
government compiled with the objective of controlling malpractices.
CCWB, which made the list, had accused HCPH of not maintaining
required standards for the inter-country adoptions. Sabitri, however,
got her orphanage included in the list, using her wide-ranging nexus
with influential individuals.
Delisted again
Acting on the recommendations of a committee it formed to oversee the
entire inter-country adoption process, the Ministry of Women, Children
and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) has deleted Sabitri's HCPH from the list
of orphanages eligible for inter-country adoption.
According to Upendra Keshari Neupane, a member of the committee, the
document Sabitri's orphanage produced for the adoption of Rajan's
daughter was full of shortcomings.
Neupane, who represents the Children NGOs Federation (CNF) on the
committee, demands that the government further probe Sabitri's
adoption activities. "Delisting alone is not enough," he argues.
Published on 2010-02-25 12:35:04
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