Some people who wanted to admit their children to SOS have changed their mind after going through these clauses. A Kashmiri born American doctor had decided to shift his servant to SOS after he vacated his residence in Hyderpora. The boy had no family to go back to. So the doctor decided to make some arrangement for him at SOS. “After reading the last clause, I changed my mind. I had some apprehensions. They are not ready to take the responsibility of the child they ‘adopt’. I mean they can do anything with the child and the guardian cannot question as he is made to sign a legal document,” the doctor says.
But Shafat has an explanation for this as well. “We have included the clause just to avoid some legal issues that the guardians may raise if, God forbid, something untoward happens to a child like an accident, a disease or a fall. It can happen with a child at his home as well,” he says.
With the civil society turning a blind eye towards the plight of these children of conflict who are being slowly devoured by the ghosts of a distressed life spent behind closed walls, and the government maintaining a criminal silence over the mushrooming of these orphanages whose owners are happily making money without being made accountable, it is not clear who will be the saviour of these dispossessed orphans.
