Like many women, Anushka & Kaveri have always had one dream – to have a child of their own. The only difference between them & other women is that they are a live-in lesbian couple in a same sex union. They have been trying to adopt a child, unsuccessfully, for the last 9 years. The reason ? The current Adoption Laws in our country do not allow same sex couples to adopt a child, simply because they are not recognized as a couple or cannot legally marry according to the prevailing Marriage laws. 

Currently, heterosexual couples who are legally married are allowed to adopt a child because their marriage is recognized. But more ironically, those heterosexual couples who are in a live-in arrangement are also allowed to adopt a child. Also, a single woman who is a lesbian is also allowed to adopt a child. Then what prevents CARA (Central Adoption Resource Agency) or the govt from letting Anushka and Kaveri (and other women in similar same sex relationships) adopt a child ? 

Anushka & Kaveri are only one such couple. There are many other lesbian couples who long for a child to complete their union & nurture & shower their love on. Although Indian Society frowns upon homosexual relationships doesn’t mean lesbians don’t have the same maternal instincts as heterosexual straight women. 

The flip side of the story is that there are 1,53,827 orphan children who are waiting for adoption. Post Covid, more than 30,000 children have been left abandoned & orphaned & are waiting to find a home.  These children may never experience love and caring simply because of an outdated law that isn’t moving with the times. 

While the SC in Sept 2018 decriminalized homosexuality, the next important step of recognizing same sex marriages is a distant dream. How difficult this next step will be, can be gauged from the fact that the decriminalization of Sec 377 itself took 22 years, despite LGBTQ communities and legal luminaries having moved the Courts for years. 

So should lesbian women and orphan children wait till then ? 

Right now, a Parliamentary panel is studying the related issues of adoption issues of the LGBTQ community. The moot question is, how many years before these laws are changed ? 

What if many lesbian couples are too old to adopt by then ? How many thousands of children have to wait till they find parents ? 

We appeal to the Hon Minister Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of Law & Justice Dept to end the traumas of women like Anushka & Kaveri by changing the adoption laws to allow lesbian women to adopt a child. 

Please sign this petition to make the relevant authorities take speedy action. This small and easy step will allow lesbian women to realize their dream of becoming mothers & allow thousands of orphans to find nurturing families & a happy, secure future.