KOCHI: Contrary to the existing male-child preference theories, the adoption trend in Kerala shows a leaning towards girl children. Among the 329 applicants, whose home study process - assessment of applicant’s social, family and financial backgrounds - has been completed - 143 prefer female children, while 75 want to adopt male children.
As per the figures available with the State Adoption Resource Agency (SARA) till Friday, other 111 applicants have no specific choices. “The preference for female children should be a state specific fact considering the social stigma against female children in most of the other states,” said Nijo Sebastian, SARA’s programme officer.
As the nation celebrates Adoption Month in November, a striking feature of the adoption trend in the state is the willingness of parents, who have biological children or adopted children, to adopt another child.
Out of the total 506 applicants in the state, five single women have showed readiness to adopt, while single men have zero representation in the list. There are only 54 legally free children - whose birth parents’ rights have been terminated by the state - for adoption. But the total number of children in all the adoption agencies - 17 to be precise - in the state is 105 - 54 male and 51 female.
Union Women and Child Development Ministry in July had revised the 2011 guidelines for adoption of children issued by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), and the new guidelines have introduced e-ways to make the adoption process more transparent.
“Even before the revised guidelines Kerala’s adoption procedures had zero mistakes and was fully transparent,” said Biju Prabhakar, administrator of Kerala State Council for Child Welfare.