India is overflowing with beauty and culture; but one can not ignore the poverty that has also engulfed the nation. This apparent poverty is a lot to blame for the alarming number of children that are abandoned. There are over 25,000 orphans in India, but over the last five years there have only been an average of 400 adoptions per year. It is hard to believe that there are so many children orphaned, and even harder to understand why the number of adoptions per year are so low. 

India is a Convention Country, meaning they have signed the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and adhere to ethical intercountry adoption practices. To find out more about how the Hague Convention will affect your family, please read the US Department of State Guide for Prospective Adoptive Parents. You may also want to investigate the Hague Adoption Process or consider the differences between a Convention adoption and a non-Convention adoption.

International Families, Inc. works with the following foreign supervised providers in India:

• Welfare Home for Children
• Mahipatram Rupram Ashram
• PEACE Home

Requirements/Eligibility

As outlined in the Central Adoption Resource Agency's (CARA) website, the requirements and eligibility for adoption are:

• Married couple with 5 years of a stable relationship, age, financial and health status with reasonable income to support the child should be evident in the Home Study Report.
• Prospective adoptive parents having composite age of 90 years or less can adopt infants and young children. These provisions may be suitably relaxed in exceptional cases, such as older children and children with special needs, for reasons clearly stated in the Home Study Report. However, in no case should the age of any one of the prospective adoptive parents exceed 55 years.
• Single persons (never married, widowed, divorced) up to 45 years can also adopt. # Age difference of the single adoptive parent and child should be 21 years or more. # A Foreign Prospective Adoptive Parent/s in no case should be less than 30 years and more than 55 years.
• A second adoption from India will be considered only when the legal adoption of the first child is completed.
• Same sex couples are not eligible to adopt.
  
  

Time Frame

It takes approximately four to six weeks after the dossier is sent to India to get a referral. A referral contains a photo, child history, and medical report. Once you accept it, and the papers are filed in court, the court process will be anywhere between nine to twelve months to receive a guardianship. The child will arrive under the Guardianship Act, and you are expected to finalize the adoption in the US within two years upon arrival.


Travel

Though IFI encourages it, it is not necessary to travel to India to pick up your child. IFI has trained staff to escort your child. If you choose not to travel, your child will be granted an IR 4 visa, stating that only one or none of the parents saw the child prior to adopting the child in the US. If you do choose to travel, please inform IFI of this decision in advance and we will help you with any arrangements that need to be made.


Post-Placement

India requires an arrival report and four post placement reports. The arrival report must be completed within the first month of your child’s arrival. The post placement reports must be completed by the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth month of your child’s arrival. The report should be done by a social worker from the same agency that facilitated your home study.  Please be advised that State and federal post-placement requirements in the United States must be met as well.

The post placement report for India should include:
-Six or more pictures of the child (alone, with family members, etc),
-The adopted child’s name (present name, and Indian name), birth date, arrival date, family name, and name of the orphanage your child was from.
-The latest information about the child, including their adjustment with the immediate and extended family, their health, temperament, parents attitude towards their child, general health improvements, adaptation to their new culture, development skills since their arrival, etc.

Reports are continued until the adoption is finalized in the US. Each orphanage has different requirements for reports after the finalization of the adoption. Some require them half yearly and some yearly. The post placement requirements are stated in your child’s court order.

All post placement reports must be sent to IFI, and will, in turn, be sent to India. After the finalization of the adoption, the finalization decree must be sent to IFI as well.