The Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity has stopped its adoption services after Centre revised the guidelines, allowing single parents to adopt, according to reports.
"It was two months ago that the Missionaries of Charity decided to discontinue all our adoption work in India. We have voluntarily given up our recognised status to run adoption centres," PTI cited a statement issued by the charity organisation.
"This decision was arrived at by the Missionaries of Charity Headquarters in Kolkata soon after we received the new 'Guidelines Governing Adoption of Children, 2015' issued under a notification from the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development," Missionaries spokesperson Sunita Kumar said in the statement.
The Centre had revised adoption rules in July, making it mandatory to allow single, separated and divorced mothers to adopt children through online registration with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).
Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi said the government will have to derecognise the organisation if it continues to defy the revised guidelines.
"They have cited ideological issues with our adoption guidelines related to giving a child up for adoption to single, unwed mothers. They have their own agenda and now when they have to come under a unified secular agenda, they are refusing it," the minister said.
