Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday invited child-care homes run by the Missionaries of Charity to “come back” to the Central Adoption Resource Authority, which is the nodal body for adoption of children and monitors in-country and inter-country adoptions.
The women and child development minister made the request during her meeting with a delegation of the Missionaries of Charity led by Sister Mary Prema Pierick. “Sister Prema agreed to my request to work jointly on each of these homes so that the children in the MoC [Missionaries of Charity] homes can be onboarded expeditiously,” Gandhi tweeted.
The Missionaries of Charity, which was founded by Mother Teresa, stopped putting children up for adoption using the central government’s system in 2015 after refusing to place children for adoption in homes with separated or divorced parents. Gandhi had threatened to derecognise the organisation if it continued to defy its revised guidelines.
In July, the Centre directed states to carry out inspections at all child care homes run by the organisation after it emerged that its staffers in a shelter home in Ranchi, Jharkhand, had allegedly sold four infants.
Gandhi had then asked states to get all child care institutions registered and linked to the Central Adoption Resource Authority within a month.
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