The Law as I understand it presumes the accused to be innocent until proven otherwise.
In India, Adoption is a legal option available to both, couples as well as single men or women desirous of having an offspring. However, the ground reality is that couples are the preferred choice as adopters followed by single women, and finally, single men. This stems from the prevalent social belief that women are the natural nurturers. The Indian Legal System also does not permit homosexuals to adopt. These could well be subjects for debate, but that is not my objective here.
The laws for adoption come with a rider - while a couple or a single woman may adopt a child of either gender, a single male is only allowed to adopt boys. Is this discriminatory?
Paedophilia is defined as the act or fantasy on the part of an adult of engaging in sexual activity with a child or children.While I haven't laid my hands on the relevant statistics, it is generally believed that men far outnumber women as sexual abusers of children. Even if this is true, does that give licence to a Judicial System to be presumptive?
There are two aspects to be considered here:
Firstly, women as well as men could be child abusers. Clearly, it is assumed that the credentials of a prospective adopter will be gone through with a fine tooth comb and the process carried forward only when these are found to pass muster. The path for either gender to be accepted as suitable parental candidates should thus be cleared.
This then brings me to the nub of the issue - both boys and girls could be victims of sexual abuse. In the eventuality that a sexual offender (or a potential one) escapes discovery during the process of scrutiny, what makes boys any less vulnerable than girls to being sexually exploited?
The Law seems to be lopsided - both from the point of view of the single male adopter as well as the adoptee. It also presumes to paint all men with the brush of suspicion - a case of guilty until proven innocent!
4 comments:
It's interesting, but the law (for Hindus) is a little stupider than you suggest. It actually says that only a single woman may adopt. The theory appears to be that if you're married, you ought to have your own children, or your husband should adopt. Also, you can only adopt a son if you don't have one for 3 generations (i.e. son, grand-son or great grand-son). You can adopt a girl if you don't have a daughter or a grand-daughter.
The sexual abuse angle is dealt with by maintianing a strict age difference between the adoptor and the adoptee.
The law is rather archaic but strangely, nobody seems to care too much. Probably because the main adoptors are either couples or single women (e.g. Sushmita Sen).
aarathi
Yes, several aspects are crazy.
Adoption is a subject of Personal Law which in India means that non Hindus/Jains/Buddhists/Sikhs cannot be adopters, but only guardians. But, a foreigner of any religion can come here, become a guardian and then formally adopt the child in his/her parent country. It's pretty weird. But, haven't talked about this as a lot of craziness goes on in the name of Personal Laws and it would mean getting into the whole Uniform Civil Code debate.
Also, this business of the husband and not wife being allowed to adopt is unfathomable - it's like being asked for your father's name on every document whereas the one you can actually be certain about is your mother! I'm guessing that the son adoption clause might have something to do with the Hindu Inheritance Laws (pure conjecture).
The age difference has to be a minimum of 21 years. But, if the context is sexual abuse of a child by an adult, this has no meaning.
in europe they never ask for dad's name in any of the forms.They only care for mom's name.
They've got it right. Another fabulous thing in Europe is also not having to state your religion on forms...and having the option of saying you don't have one. Wish it could be the same here. Our Laws seem to be uniformly stupid across different subjects.
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