Creating a system of foster care in India

Most people in India are not aware of what fostering means, and so it never crosses their mind that it is something that they could do. The few that have heard of it, often confuse it with adoption. Among them, there are even fewer who know the difference between the two and believe that this not available under Indian law. 

In a country with over 30 million orphans, only a few thousand were adopted last year. The rest are languishing in orphanages, private and public, being trafficked, forced into begging, construction trades, with many now missing and unaccounted for. These are our children and we owe them a a basic level of care. Our collective responsibility seems to have dwindled to government apathy and general neglect. This is the context of the shocking waiting lists of over 3 years for the people who wish to adopt and a situation where children above the age of 5 years old are called 'unadoptable' because no one wants them. 

Children who are available for foster care are generally not available for adoption due to some legal issues with them being cleared by the courts as ‘free from adoption’. 

The fundamental difference between fostering and adoption is that you have temporary guardianship in the former that must be periodically renewed and the child does not become 'yours' legally. Fostering is extremely rare in our country and generally only used where there is a crisis in a family and the extended family steps in to protect the children while the crises resolves. For example, if one or both parents die and the immediate legal guardianship of the child cannot be identified, then an uncle or aunt may take them in with permission from the State.  

There are laws in India that permit foster care and with a new Juvenile Justice law passed, we can expect many changes to the system. Fostering is a common enough concept and defined process in the West, especially in the United States where there are government incentives and specific agencies devoted to placing children in homes. While there is certainly a lot of improvement required in their approach, particularly in maintaining a level of supervision on an ongoing basis and in better selection of foster parents, the basic culture of care does exist. 

Read: 14 notable amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act

In the Indian environment, for those who want to and can be the change, fostering offers an easier, faster route to providing a loving shelter for a child. Converting from a foster carer to a adoptive parent is a largely unknown beast. Taking in a stranger’s child is hard especially in such a situation when it is likely you will have to give them up in the short term. However, especially for infants this will allow them to get proper nutrition and hygiene at a critical stage in their development. Government orphanages do not have bottle feeding facilities so a child with a strong tendency to suckle often may not imbibe enough milk. Many government orphanages also lack other basic infrastructure such as washing machines. Anyone with experience of children would know how important clean clothes, sheets etc are to maintain a healthy environment around a baby. 

Also read: New adoption guidelines; centralised database of children

Fostering can be very short term, medium term or long term but for the foster parents, it’s generally always ‘unknown term’ in that you have no definite end date for the process. You are basically opening your heart and home to a child, treating them as your own and providing the best that you can, with no financial or other support from government or other agencies – with one exception.  Foster Care India is one organisation, based out of Rajasthan that has the sole agenda of promoting this route of placing children in safe environments. They have successfully placed children in foster care homes in that region and have a wider agenda of creating awareness and assisting in policy making in this space. You can check out their work on fostercareindia.org . 

Data on foster care is very scarce. BOSCO, a reputed NGO has been involved in this space for awhile and at one point even provided low income families that were willing to foster long term a financial incentive to do so. In Karnataka, there are two known cases of non-kinship, short term foster care where couples have approached the government child welfare committee and requested permission to foster. These are normal middle class families who have a child already and have made provision in their life to do this. 

Fostering involves many restrictions. For example, you cannot disclose or share the identity of the child, post pictures on social media etc, in the long term interests of the child. The Karnataka families hired a nanny to help with the care of the babies (both brought in under a year of age) and provided all the other resources from within their own means. They claim that it has not proved a hardship at all and love having another child to provide for, especially knowing that they have secured the health and safety of it at a particularly sensitive age. They are aware that when the time comes, if it does, to hand over the child to its real parents or new adoptive ones, it will be a heart wrenching moment, but that does not shake their resolve to walk on this path. 

Hopefully, their stories encourage others to come forward and bring more children from institutional care into homes.

Antra Bhargava is a Consultant CFO, qualified CA and a Law graduate from Trinity College, Dublin. She has several years experience in working with organisations in the profit and not-for-profit sector. A trained martial artist, she is passionate about the empowerment, education and safety of women and children.