Ojha blames former minister, NGOs, INGOs
2010-06-06
The Himalayan Times
Himalayan News Service
KATHMANDU: Sarv Dev Prasad Ojha, minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare said today that foreign countries were suspending adoption from Nepal after the ministry implemented the ‘The Financial Aid Mobilisation and Management Procedure, 2010 strictly.
“Inter-country adoption has at present developed into a racket with wide and strong network,” said the minister adding that foreign countries were unhappy with the management procedure that he recently introduced. He charged that NGOs and INGOs were looting the country in the name of social service, with around 276 orphanages established in Kathmandu alone.
The present procedure has a provision for integratively and transparently mobilising and managing financial aid contributed by foreign organisations or agencies enlisted last year or to be enlisted from this year with the ministry. As per the present provision, the foreign organisation shall annually contribute at least US$10,000 of which $3,000 would be deposited as government revenue and $5,000 had to be contributed to orphanages.
The minister charged that Pampha Bhusal, the former women’s minister and her team had kept 550 inter-country adoption cases pending in 2009 as they failed to finalise a deal. “There is no record of $10,000 that the ministry took from 63 international agencies in the name of inter-country adoption,” accused the minister, assuring that the case would be investigated and those responsible would be punished.
Referring to the Canadian authorities’ move suspending adoption from Nepal on Friday, he said it wouldn’t make a great difference.
After Germany, Canada banned adoption of Nepali children, citing reports of extensive abuse, fraudulent documents and false statements about children’s origin and other related information. Canada’s Immigration Ministry had pointed to a report of the Hague Conference on Private International Law that described “strong evidence” of prevalence of fraudulent documents and false statements about children’s origin, age and status, as well as questions of whether adoptees or potential adoptees were abandoned.
At present, there are 534 inter-country adoption applications, but there are only 400 children available for adoption.
The ministry has handed over around 40 children for adoption till date since 2009. It is working with 80 foreign agencies and 44 domestic agencies for inter-country adoption.
European nations, particularly Italy, France, Spain, Germany as well as the US and Canada are major recipients of adopted Nepali children.
Ojha added that Nepal could not ban inter-country adoption as the country was not self-sufficient in terms of resources for nurturing and bringing up orphaned children.
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Ojha+blames+former+minister%2C+NGOs%2C+INGOs+&NewsID=246285
Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
http://www.pear-now.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated to prevent spam