The Juvenile Justice Care and Protection of Children Act, 2015, which seeks to ensure the rights of children in need of care and protection, particularly in connection to adoption, foster care, and sponsorship, was the subject of a petition that the Supreme Court granted.
The main concerns of this petition were: –
- Declining adoption rates in India;
- Inadequacies and reformation of adoption laws as suggested by the report of the Parliament Standing Committee;
- Child adoption, care, and protection, particularly for those with special needs;
- There is no appropriate foster care system that exists;
- There is no working idea for implementing scholarships, resource and budget allocation.
According to information from 2020, 8.5% of all Indian children are abandoned, but only 0.0009% of children are given up for adoption in any given year. The plea asserts that between April 2020 and January 2022, 0,094 children became orphans, 1,36,910 children lost both parents, and 488 children were abandoned as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, citing an affidavit presented to the Supreme Court in a suo moto hearing by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights. The JJ Act’s “meager” adoption rate, which for the years 2021–2022 was just 2291, is said to have been unaffected by the rise in the number of orphans.
According to the petition, the 118th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on “Review of Guardianship and Adoption Laws,” which was given to the Parliament, found flaws in the adoption laws and suggested revamping them to make them “consistent,” “transparent,” and “less bureaucratic.” The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act and the JJ Act could be harmonized, according to the proposal.
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Care and adoption of children, especially those in needs
Out of the 1858 kids up for adoption in July 2022, 1265 of them had special needs. According to the petition, there will be 68% more adoptable children with special needs in 2022 than there were in 2018. According to the research, adoption agencies are “fast becoming disposal facilities for children with exceptional needs whom neither their family nor the possible adoptive parents desire to care for.”
Even though Section 44 of the JJ Act mentions foster care, the petition contends that the plan is not carried out. Moreover, unlike CARA, which acted as a nodal entity for regulating and monitoring adoption, there is no such single authority for supervising foster care..
No proper system of sponsorship implementation or allocation of budget
According to the appeal, the sponsorship program described in Section 45 of the JJ Act is not being carried out in full. If successfully carried out, the program would greatly enhance the lives of children by meeting their medical, dietary, educational, and other needs.
The petition claims that in the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2021–2022, Child Protection Services and Child Welfare Services were combined under Mission Vatsalya. A total budget of 900 crore rupees was allocated to it.Only Rs. 821 crores of the aforementioned budget were actually spent during the years 2021–2022. Rs. 1472 crores for the fiscal year 2022–2023 has been raised as a budget allotment for mission Vatsalya. According to the petition, it is essential to determine the financial requirements for ensuring adequate care and protection of children in need and allocating those funds effectively.
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