By Arun Dohle
Why do we do it?
The reason I took up other adoptees cases is that I don’t wish anyone to have to give up their profession.
To travel to India forty times.
To fight in the courts for seven years.
And to lose everything.
As I did.
I want to share my experience with other adoptees, help them navigate the Indian bureaucracy and together challenge the laws that keep our identities secret.
A sense of justice.
I love the work I took up against trafficking and for adoptee rights.
I believe that the authorities must acknowledge the wrongs committed and assist us adoptees with re-establishing our identities.
The truth must be acknowledged.
Stealing children and providing the courts with false information are not minor errors.
They are serious crimes — except when done under the umbrella of intercountry adoption.
Far too many cases of adoptions from India were illegal under Indian law, and yet all parties cover up the evidence. Many are also illegal in western law.
We Claim our Rights
We claim the right to search for our parents.
We demand that adoptive parents, adoption agencies and government agencies assist us in this process — instead of blocking us.
We demand that our government grant us financial support in these searches.
We also demand the right for every Indian adoptee to be given a free OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) card and be acknowledged as a special category of the Indian Diaspora.
ARCs aim is to become obsolete. This will be done when the Indian Government recognizes our rights and provides us with the appropriate support.
