All child care homes run by MoC to be inspected after baby selling racket

New Delhi: Inspections must be carried out immediately at all child care homes run by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity across the country, Women and Child Development (WCD) minister, Maneka Gandhi, has instructed all the state governments. 

The government's instructions comes after the recent cases of alleged illegal adoptions were reported at the Missionaries of Charity shelter home in Jharkhand, wherein three children were rescued after being trafficked by three nuns of the missionaries. 

Read: Baby sold for Rs 1.20 lakh: Jharkhand MoC nun, staff confess in video

Maneka Gandhi asked state governments to ensure that all child care institutions get registered and linked to the country' top adoption body, Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), within a month.

According to an official release, the mandatory registration of child care institutions and linking to the CARA has been provided in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 which came into force more than two years ago, but some orphanages had challenged the validity of this clause. 

Approximately 2,300 child care institutions have been linked to CARA since Decemeber 2017 and about 4,000 are still pending for linkage.

Maneka Gandhi has also expressed displeasure that even the children available for adoption in the 2,300 CARA linked institutions have still not been brought into on the adoption system.

The minister is expected to discuss this issue in the meeting of the Women and Child Development Ministers of States on July 17.

According to National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, there are 2,32,937 children in all the CCIs - registered and the unregistered ones - in the country.