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ABSTRACT
Adoption as a construction of a family has drawn worldwide research since three decades. India as one of the ancient countries in the Asian continent has gone through major changes in the field of adoption. From an informally adopting male child for performing last rites after the death of the adopted parents, India has shown progressive changes. During the social reform in the 1950's, India focused on finding home for abandoned, destitute, illegitimate and surrendered children. These children were institutionalized and eventually placed for domestic and inter-country adoption. The domestic adoption in India gained its momentum only in late 1980's. Since then, important changes have happened in the field of adoption. In this phenomenological approach, we used interviews in conjunction with review of literature and books on adoption. After a brief historical perspective from Indian and Western part, we focused on three areas in this field. 1. Development of policies and legal guidelines in India and its impact on adoption as an organized sector, 2. Adoption scenario in South India, and 3. Current challenges and future trends of domestic adoption.
Key words: Child welfare, Domestic adoption, Inter- country adoption, Indian adoption policy.
INTRODUCTION
Adoption of children in India
"Adoption is the establishment of a parent-child relationship through a legal and social process other than the birth process. It is a process by which a child of one set of parents becomes the child of another set of parents or parent (Ananthalakshmi, Sampoorna, Mushtaq, Sheelajayanthi, and Charulatha, 2001). Indian adoption policies are sculpted, by several years of ongoing efforts by social reform lobbyists and child welfare organizations. This is evident from the laws and policies set forth by the Government of India. A more recent policy in the Chapter IV of the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 implemented the concept of secular adoption whereby, without any reference to the community or religious persuasions of the parents or the child concerned, a right appears to be granted to all citizens to adopt, and all children to be adopted. While this was a positive change, this concept still did not give the legal and legitimate status to the child equal to that of a biological, legitimate child. Later, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of...