Pushed by poverty to give away their newborns

Delhi police bust fraud adoptions but face moral dilemma

Nazma’s* son was just a day old when she told her estranged mother, a midwife, that she would not be able to raise her baby. The 28-year-old mother of five knew that the monthly income as an erickshaw driver of her husband, who was an alcoholic and often beat her up, was not enough to take care of another member in the family.

In less than a week, she chose to hand over her infant to a family in west Delhi. She only wished for a good family to raise her son. She received ₹2,00,000 in return.

Rekha, whom Nazma’s mother knew, helped her in this arrangement. “When I reached the appointed place in Uttam Nagar, Rekha was there with a couple who took my child and kissed him in front of me and then Rekha took money from the couple and surprisingly gave it to me,” she said.