Unknown 2 and 1, the two four-day-old baby girls abandoned in Mumbai and now rescued, don?t know how unusual they are. Ever since a Mumbai paper ran a report on the plight of these two sisters, the city?s inhabitants have been queuing up to offer help ?many want to go beyond that and adopt them. But if their story has a fairy tale ending, it will be just that ? a fantastic conclusion not usually found in real life.
Over 10 years ago, a friend of mine who works with an NGO that monitors child welfare, orphanages and adoption figures told me about the Indian pecking order. Indians who wanted to adopt children had very clear demands. At the top of the list were fair male babies. Next up were dark male babies. Then fair female babies. The hardest to place, according to her, were children with disabilities ? physically disabled children had a slight edge over children with mental disabilities ? and ?unattractive and dark? female babies.
This wasn?t especially surprising. But it came as a shock to me when she and two of her colleagues said that nothing had changed in the last 10 years. It was still more common to find abandoned girl babies than abandoned boys; disabled children still had a better chance of finding a home with foreign families than with Indian; and fair boys still had the best shot at being adopted. As children get older, chances that they will find a family drop sharply.
The picture changes completely if you look at adoption figures for Indian children by foreign nationals. In the West, especially in America, the demand for girl babies is higher than for boys. Some Americans who want to adopt a child from India are advised by their agencies that they will have a shorter waiting period if they opt for a boy. But even with more stringent checks in place, there have been terrible stories of girl babies being adopted only to be trafficked. Children of both genders have often been ?adopted? by couples abroad and in India and used as domestic servants or forced out to work. But girls are in greater danger of being ?adopted? by prostitution rings putting up a ?parent? as a front.
Recently, NRI associations have been asking for priority treatment in adoption cases, reasoning that the government should give more weight to families of Indian heritage rather than to outsiders. Unfortunately, NRI adopters are no more or less likely to abuse a child than any other group. And in terms of gender selection, their preferences are still skewed towards the resident Indian ideal ? boys are more in demand than girls.
This attitude benefits no one: for a male child to know that his gender is the only reason his foster family wanted him is every bit as damaging as for a female child to know that the only reason no one wanted her has to do with being of the ?wrong? gender. Children are precious: they need love, they require our respect, and they deserve the best care. The only good reason to adopt a child is if you can provide all of these things ? not because you?re looking for something, boy or girl, that will fit into your life like a commissioned piece of furniture.
