The Minister of Women & Child Development, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi will inaugurate tomorrow a major One Day Regional Conference with North Eastern States in Shillong on the issues relating to Child Adoption. The Ministers In-charge of Social Welfare and Women & Child Development in the North Eastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura will participate in the conference.
About 400 delegates are expected to attend the Conference, including the stakeholders from the State Adoption Resource Agencies (SARAs), District Child Protection Units (DCPUs), Child Welfare Committees (CWCs), Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAAs) and Child Care Institutions (CCIs) in the North Eastern States, besides the senior officers from the Ministry of Women & Child Development, Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and the concerned Department of the State Governments in the region.
The conference has been organised with a view to:
(i) Familiarise the stakeholders with the adoption programme in North Eastern States about the provisions relating to adoption under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 ; and
(ii) Orient them about the provisions of Adoption Guidelines – 2015 as well as the online adoption process through Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS).
The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development issued revised Guidelines Governing Adoption of Children 2015 which became effective from August last year. The 2015 Guidelines issued by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) replaced the 2011 Adoption Guidelines.
These Guidelines are intended to provide for more effective regulation for adoption of orphan, abandoned and surrendered children and would bring more transparency and efficiency in the adoption system. Simultaneously, Central Adoption Resource Information Guidance System (CARINGS), as an e-governance measure created for the purpose of facilitating adoption of children, has also been revamped. For hassle-free adoption, CARINGS will contain a centralized data bank of adoptable children and Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs). Clear cut timelines for domestic and inter-country adoption have been laid down.
The revised guidelines coupled with the new IT enabled adoption system – CARINGS, provide a transparent process of adoption under which all the child care institutions of the country have been brought into an integrated system.
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 came into force from 15th January, 2016 and repeals the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000. The Act contains a separate new chapter on Adoption to streamline adoption of orphan, abandoned and surrendered children. It gives the existing Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) the status of a statutory body to enable it to perform its function more effectively. Separate chapter (VIII) on Adoption provides for detailed provisions relating to adoption and punishments for not complying with the laid down procedure. Processes have been streamlined with timelines for both in-country and inter-country adoption including declaring a child legally free for adoption.
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