Can single parents now foster children? Here are the revised guidelines

The ministry of women and child development just gave India's foster care guidelines a major makeover.

What's new? The latest update opens the door for single men and women — whether unmarried, widowed, divorced or legally separated — between the ages of 25 and 60 years to become foster parents.

So now, single parents can not only adopt but also foster children on a more temporary basis.

But again, as with the adoption laws, while single women can foster and adopt children of any biological sex, single men are limited to fostering and adopting only male children.

The revision also updates the requirements for married couples in the foster care system. While couples were already able to foster as well as adopt, they must now show they have been in a 'stable' marital relationship for at least two years before they can apply to foster a child. The 2016 guidelines had no specific requirements for married couples

What do the experts say? Kusum Mohapatra of the Miracle Foundation gave a thumbs-up to the new guidelines, India Today reports. The latest guidelines "mark a significant step forward in the country's commitment to ensuring that every child grows up in a nurturing family environment", she says, per the report.

Leena Prasad of Udayan Care also thinks the update is a good one. "From an inclusivity and diversity perspective, this also recognises that family structures in India are diverse and that single parents can provide just as much love, stability, and support as conventional two-parent households," she notes.

However, not everyone is cheering. Apart from those against single parenthood, there are critics who feel the new guidelines are not all that inclusive.

Vaidehi Subramani, former chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee in South Delhi, questions the restriction on single men fostering only boys.

"The implication that single men might pose a greater risk to girls could be seen as unfairly stigmatising, potentially deterring capable and caring single men from fostering," Mohapatra too agrees.

There's also a large lacuna, she points out. Despite some signs of progress, the guidelines don’t address inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community. Mohapatra thinks this is a missed opportunity and believes India should catch up with global trends by recognising diverse family structures.

The new guidelines does not speak of third-gender children and who should foster them, nor discusses the rights of third-gender single persons or same-sex couples to foster.

Notably, the Juvenile Justice Act does not prevent a third-gender person or couple from adopting (because the law is not gender-specific).

However, the 2018 CARA Steering Committee Report says that live-in couples cannot adopt children either as single parents or a couple. Which then automatically excludes same-sex couples, since they cannot 'marry' per law.

Mohapatra adds that allowing individuals of the LGBTQIA+ community to foster could significantly expand the pool of potential foster parents and provide loving homes for children who need them, reports India Today.

While the new foster care guidelines are promising, the debate continues on gender biases and need for a broader definition of 'inclusivity'. While the system is evolving, there is a long way to go still for the 1.2 lakh children currently in the system.