Activities of Child Homes Suspicious (Gorkhapatra)

Kathmandu – The Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare has taken action against one orphan home for presenting fake documents. Only last week the Hague Convention submitted a report saying that the Nepalese orphan homes are not transparent. As a punishment, the said orphan home cannot send any child on international adoption for 2 years.

According to the ministry the Ranibari based orphan home presented fake documents to send a child to USA. The parents of the child who are working as labour in Kathmandu were not aware of this conspiracy. The case was revealed when the parents of the child came looking for their child in the ministry after she went missing from the orphan home.

Minister of MOWCSW Mr. Sarbadev Ojha said the orphan home was trying to send the child on adoption using fake documents. This action is very positive for the adoption. As there are many irregularities, we are soon coming up with minimum criteria for the orphan homes.

The report of the Hague Convention mentioning that “the children homes don’t meet the criteria of the Hague convention and they are not transparent” came as an earthquake. Ms. Jennifer Degeling has published on the 4^th of February, a report right after her visit in Nepal.

The report mentioned that the law on Inter-country adoption is very weak, and the conditions of the orphan homes are very critical. In the report, she emphasized that the orphan homes should meet the criteria set by Hague convention.

The report also showed disagreement for $10,000 which has to be paid by the international agency.

It also highlighted the importance of a child psychologist’s presence in the committee, which finalises the adoption process.

The Hague report also mentioned that the presence of CNFN in the matching committee will influence the matching process and transparency cannot be maintained. Because of this report CNFN cancelled all the membership of the orphan homes who were affiliated with them. The Monitoring, Investigation and Recommendation Committee also has a member of CNFN.

8 Embassies including Germany have written the ministry to remove CNFN from the adoption committees, but the president of CNFN accused the attitude of the embassies being revengeful.

He said that the membership of 38 orphan homes is cancelled. We will soon send the comment on the Hague convention. We have respected the Hague report without our consent.

Even though the Hague report showed disagreement on the $10,000 taken from the international agencies, the ministry has already published the new Financial Fund 2010 which is said to be used in a transparent way for the rights of the children.

The process of getting $10,000 is old, said minister Ojha.

A source from the ministry told that an account has been opened in Nepal Investment Bank to collect the said amount.

It is known that there are 535 files in the ministry for the year 2009. Among them, 20 children already left Nepal, 38 are waiting for the final decision, and 60 files have already finished the matching process.

Nepal has already signed the Hague Convention.