India probes racket at Mother Teresa homes

NUN IS ARRESTED OVER ‘ABDUCTING AND SALE OF BABIES

INDIA has ordered an immedi­ate inspection of all childcare homes run by a religious order founded by Mother Teresa after a nun was arrested over an al­leged adoption racket.

Illegal adoption is big business in India with over 100,000 chil­dren reported missing every year, the government says. Many are given up by desperately poor par­ents, but others are snatched from hospitals and train stations.

Police earlier this month ar­rested the nun and a worker at one of the Missionaries of Chari­ty’s homes in Ranchi, the capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand, over allegations that at least five infants were sold for potentially thousands of dollars.

The scandal came to light after local child welfare authorities in­formed police about a newborn missing from the home, which is meant to care for unwed pregnant women and mothers in distress.

On Monday (16), women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi said all state gov­ernments have been asked “to get child care homes run by Mission­aries of Charity all over the coun­try inspected immediately”.

The ministry said under the Juvenile Justice Act, which came into effect more than two years ago, it was mandatory for every shelter home dealing with chil­dren and their adoption to regis­ter and also link the organisation to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).

However, about 4,000 institu­tions are yet to be linked, the ministry said.

The chairwoman of Jharkhand State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Arti Kujur, said the state had formed teams to in­spect all its shelter homes and hoped to receive their reports in early August.

“If we find any one operating such homes illegally, strong ac­tion will be taken,” Kujur said.

Separately, Kujur said all four infants sold by the nun and the worker arrested this month had been recovered by the authority.

The charity’s superior general, Sister Prema MC, expressed regret at the recent incident and said the individual’s actions had nothing to do with its congregation.

“We are fully cooperating with the investigations and open to any free, fair and just inquiry,” she said.

In December the supreme court ordered the registration of all childcare institutions and the bringing of orphanages under the central adoption system.

Since then some 2,300 child­care institutions have been linked to the Central Adoption Resource Authority and about 4,000 are sti-ll pending, according to the Indi­an government.

In the aftermath of the adop­tion scandal, the Missionaries of Charity had said it would careful­ly look into the Jharkhand case and ensure the incident was nev­er repeated.

The charity was founded in 1950 by Mother Teresa, a global symbol of compassion who was canonised as a saint after her death in 1997.

Headquartered in the eastern city of Kolkata, the charity runs several institutions across the en­tire country.

Missionaries of Charity was previously involved in providing legal adoption services in India but in 2015 said it was closing down its adoption centres, citing new regulations that made it eas­ier for single and divorced people to adopt children. (AFP, Reuters)