Girl child preferred for adoption

Reams have been written about the inhuman treatment meted out to a majority of girl children in the country however when it comes to adoption, girl children happen to be the preferred choice. Nearly 76 per cent of those who apply for child adoption choose girls over boys. However, when it comes to abandoning children, 75 per cent of abandoned children happen to be girls.

Hema Kumar (name changed) was only three months old when her parents abandoned her near a temple in Kalyan. When the police could not find her parents despite investigation, the Maharashtra State Adoption Resource Authority (SARA) took her under their wing. As luck would have it, two years ago, an engineer couple adopted her without discriminating against her gender.

This is not a lone case. Every year, several abandoned or lost girl children get adopted in the state without any gender discrimination. In fact, girls are preferred over boys for adoption. “In most adoption cases, when we ask parents to fill up the adoption form that also asks about their reference to gender of the child, they choose girls,” said Meeta Patil, one of the main coordinators of the state child adoption committee. In the past five years, 5,200 children were adopted in Maharashtra. Out of which, in more than 4,000 adoption forms, the applicants chose girls over boys. \"Most who opt for adoption are well educated, so they don't discriminate against children in terms of gender. In fact, they are more sympathetic towards girls and want to provide them a better life,\" said Anand More, coordinator of child adoption from Nasik.

When it comes to abandonment though, boys are abandoned only when they are sick, mentally unstable or disabled. \"Boys are abandoned for their disability but girls are abandoned for their gender. We have hardly seen any healthy boy being abandoned by a family. So, the number of children in adoption centres is also less. These centres are mostly full of girls,\" said an officer from Janani Ashish Charitable Trust, Mumbai.