Where Are India's Children?

Why WAIC

Imagine a child spending their entire childhood in a shelter, despite having the opportunity to join a loving family, because the child protection authorities failed to evaluate them for adoption. This heartbreaking scenario prompted the formation of Where Are India’s Children (WAIC) by three passionate adoptive mothers. They realized that we are failing to protect the most vulnerable children in India. The number of children in Child Care Institutions (CCIs, aka shelters) ranges from 3.5 – 4 lakhs. The number of children that are in the legal adoption pool at any point is not more than 2100. On the other hand, over 34,000 couples and singles are registered and waiting to adopt.

Why is there no reconciliation for the wide chasm
between 4,00,000 and 2000?

General apathy and lack of pre-adoption process understanding
Status of legal guardians for children at shelters is unclear
Abandoned and Orphaned children are not tracked and highlighted for adoption
No Real-Time Dashboards or Insights into the children living in the shelters
No incentive for CCI to promote the adoption

Permanent solutions are possible. At WAIC, with the support of the local WCD governments, we are working to ensure that abandoned and orphaned children are accounted for and reach a positive outcome in the best interest of the child.

Technology enabled Field-work

Digitize records of the 4,00,000 children in CCIs and flag eligible children. Use our tech , Child Lifecycle Management Solution (CLMS), and work with the State and District WCD Departments to process the cases of eligible children to move them into the legal adoption pool.

Policy Changes

Through research, representation, and public awareness, support the authorities in creating clearer guidelines and rules that govern the adoption enquiries of children in shelters

Training

Over 30,000 relevant stakeholders need to be sensitized and trained

WAIC has adopted a 3-Pronged Approach to tackle the challenges

Digitise records of the 4,00,000 Children in CCI and flag eligible children for adoption in their home-grown tech solution, Child Lifecycle Management Solution (CLMS)

#Family4EveryChild

Sensitise and train over 30,000 district WCD authorities and child care institutions about adoption and the process of bringing children into the legal adoption pool.

#Family4EveryChild

Through research, representation, and public awareness, support authorities to make policy changes that govern the adoption mechanism.

#Family4EveryChild

Unregistered & illegal child shelters continue to thrive,
endangering children

Publish monthly
performance
data of child
protection bodies

Make selection and training of child welfare committee rigorous and competitive

Make child welfare as an autonomous constitutional body

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Now, you can further deep dive into the
explanation of Issues and Proposed Solutions below:

Issue 1 : Children continue to be abandoned in our country. No reliable mechanism exists for accounting them. Only about 1.5% out of the estimated 30 million abandoned children even make it to child care institutions (CCIs), aka shelters.

Ask 1 : Deploy the best long-term technology solutions to make every child ‘visible’ in every CCI across India. Use technology for shelter home management and government processes to ensure good data-based decisions about the child’s welfare, such as moving eligible children to the legal adoption pool.

Issue 2 : Unregistered CCIs continue to exist without being forced to register under the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 (JJ Act) or being shut down, despite the Supreme Court directive. Which means shelters are illegally keeping children without any monitoring.

Ask 2 : State governments must monthly publish the number of children who are abandoned and orphaned, the number of children in CCIs, and dates of checks on CCIs. States must also monthly publish their progress in providing Aadhaar Cards for every child in CCIs.

Issue 3 : Though efforts are being taken to link Registered CCIs to specialised adoption agencies (SAAs), utilisation of this linkage is currently ineffective, thus destroying chances of majority of abandoned and orphaned children to get adopted into a family.

Ask 3 : Legally register or close unregistered CCIs, and make the linkage between registered CCIs and specialised adoption agencies (SAAs) effective.

Issue 4 : 2.5 to 5 lac children who live in CCIs year after year are not periodically reviewed for adoption eligibility. Meaning that if a child was not legally available for adoption in the beginning, no-one will ever check again whether the situation changed and the child became adoptable over time.

Ask 4: Amend the JJ Act to add mandatory periodic reviews for every child in CCIs to check for adoption eligibility.

Issue 5 : Despite the existence of several district and state level government bodies for child welfare, CCIs are not thoroughly monitored as per the law and many CCIs continue to ignore the possibility of adoption. Because who is going to complain when the job is not done? The children?

Ask 5 : Publicly post the monthly performance data of the district level child protection bodies: Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) and District Child Protection Units (DCPUs). Aggregated data of proactive CCI visits, cases handled, and decisions made should be publicly reported. Hold a rigorous selection process for CWC positions, and make training a prerequisite for the job, rather than a post-requisite.

Issue 6 : Talking about government bodies that deal with children, there is a hugely important one called Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) that are supposed to exist in every single district of India. CWCs are autonomous bodies with the final authority and responsibility towards all children who need care and protection, and among many other things, are supposed to monitor CCIs and move children into the adoption pool. For India’s vulnerable children to even have a slightest chance, CWCs need to be the extremely high-functioning competent bodies. However in many districts, CWCs have been called out for being untrained, understaffed, unaccountable, and unmonitored. There is no escalation or complain mechanism if CWCs in any districts are not properly constituted, do not function as prescribed, and do not function on a full-time basis, further risking the welfare of vulnerable children.

Ask 6 : CWCs are part-time honorarium positions, with no clear checks and accountability. Child welfare should be built out as a separate constitutional structure, such as the Election Commission of India, where central, state, and district child protection bodies are monitored and accountable, with a quick response complaint channel against these bodies. Build out legal consequences for child protection bodies failing to complete their responsibilities.

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WAIC (Where Are India’s Children)is working for a #ChildsRight2Family. We believe in a #Family4EveryChild