Tuesday, Mar 01, 2005
Tuesday, Mar 01, 2005 |
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By Our Staff Reporter
NEW DELHI, FEB. 28. Shabnam Hashmi might love her daughter Seher, but she will never be her "mother". Bringing her home from an adoption agency to complete her family eight years ago, her religion determined that her emotional bond with Seher will only be limited to guardianship. While her family has learnt to live these insensitive terms, they were rather rudely reminded that for her husband's office -- National Institute of Sciences Technology and Development Studies -- Seher "does not qualify to be a member of his family". "This is an emotional issue for our family, what right does any government official have to say that she does not qualify as a member of our family? My husband Gauhar Raza is a scientist. He sent the guardianship papers to his office when we adopted Seher, but for some reasons her name was not entered in the service book then. Now when he resent the papers, he got a memo telling us that in the absence of any legal document, she does not qualify to be a member of our family," said an emotional Ms. Hashmi at a press conference here yesterday. Under the law, only Hindus are allowed to adopt and relationships like the mother and father don't exist for these children at least on paper. And Ms. Hashmi believes that the insensitive attitude of the officials at her husband's office is just one aspect to being a `guardian' to a child. "We have adopted Seher under the only route available for us. The whole adoption process is so complicated that at every step you are forced not to adopt. The government should be adopting a policy to get people to adopt since there are children who need homes. Parents also face a lot of harassment when they have to go to get their kids admitted to school. I can't understand why Seher should be discriminated against just because the home she came to was Muslim," she stated.
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