While the devastation wrought by the pandemic in India has been unprecedented, young children have mercifully accounted for only a small percentage of Covid-19 infections. This, however, does not mean that the contagion did not inflict collateral damage on children. With the rapidly rising Covid-19 death toll, social media platforms have been flooded with posts sharing details about children who have allegedly lost either both parents or the only living parent to the disease. These posts plead for the bereft children to be adopted. The implications are troubling: while social media has proved to be useful for sharing information regarding oxygen and other medical services, the adoption appeals — they are not routed through the Central Adoption Resource Authority, India’s nodal adoption body — open up the online space to traffickers and predators. The Maharashtra government has stated that such adoption attempts are illegal and punishable under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Cara’s regulations. The latter, enacted in 2017, made the screening process for adoption even more rigorous. This is just as well; children cannot be handed over to anyone looking to adopt without conducting adequate checks.

In a healthcare system already collapsing under the weight of Covid-19 cases on account of political ineptitude and inadequate infrastructure, the added menace of children being trafficked under the guise of adoption poses a serious problem. Hospitals around the country have reportedly been told to take declarations from sick parents to confirm whom their children should go to in case of their deaths. But this process, too, is open to misuse. A crisis of this scale will require a coordinated effort among law enforcement agencies, non-profit organizations and bona fide monitoring agencies to patrol online spaces and track down suspicious appeals, locate vulnerable children and place them under legal care. Genuine cases of children orphaned on account of Covid must be heeded. To this end, care centres in Telangana for the children of Covid-19 patients have proved to be a boon. Similar facilities, where the children’s right to food, education and shelter are protected, must be identified or set up in other states. Adoption agencies must be drafted into this process. Implementing such measures, however, would require detailed planning. Will an administration that has made its inability to efficiently handle the second wave of infections apparent pay attention to this?