Indian society is changing through some dynamic changes and single parent adoption is from one of that dynamic changes, which gave the chance to a single men/women to have his/her family without spouse. It is intensely personal choice to have children through normal process or adoption and all children have the right to live in a loving permanent family. Adoption by single parents has increased a lot from the past few years.
The reason why challenges for single parent adoption is reduced because of the primary factors which is the growing acceptance of one parent families due to separation, divorce and unmarried single women/men raising a child on their own and the secondary factor like financial indecency and literacy.
Single parent either unmarried or divorced are allowed to adopt children with some conditions and restrictions. The minimum age limit of single mother adoption in India has been brought down from 30 to 25. For male single parent the minimum adopting age is 25 years. There should be 21 years of age difference between the adoptive parent and adoptive child. From 25 to 45 years of age single man/woman can adopt a child below the age of 4 years, while those up to the age of 50 are eligible to adopt child between the age of 5 to 8 and for those up to the age of 55, they can adopt between the ages of 9 to 18. You cannot adopt a child after he attain his majority.
An act namely The Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) was passed by The Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2015. In which the rule of adopting was amended and the law gave permission to single woman to adopt a kid of any gender but for men the Juvenile Justice Act does not lawfully prescribed to adopt a child of opposite gender. In India, usually a single male is not eligible to be an adoptive parent, he may be eligible if he applies through the registered agency.
- What is the procedure of adoption for single woman/man?
Before The Central Adoption Resource Authority, you could only apply for adoption within the state jurisdiction you are residing in. But since 2015 this has changed, the procedure has been centralized. A fantastic organization namely CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority) is enacted by The Women and Child Welfare Ministry. And for the action of adoption, CARA and Juvenile Justice Act are supplementary acts. You can apply for adoption on the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) website, upload all the required documents and wait for your turn.
- How long will the procedure take to complete?
Generally, it depends on certain circumstances which are mentioned following:
- The most important thing is what the age of the child is. The younger the child, the harder it will be to adopt.
- The path you chose- Domestic public, Domestic Private, and International adoptions are all very different from each other.
- Do you care about the gender or Learning disabilities or Physical disabilities?
