Karnataka woman fosters girl no one wanted, now has to fight for her custody

KALABURAGI: A woman who had been raising an orphan female child for the last seven years is now running from pillar to post after officials of the Women and Child Development Department took away the child into their care stating that she was not the legal guardian.

Jayashree Guttedar, a resident of Gubbi Colony here, had found an infant dumped in a bush near a private maternity hospital about seven years back. The baby was weeping and nobody had bothered to save her. Jayashree picked up the baby and looked for her parents and relatives. When she could not trace them, the mother of three decided to look after the baby herself and the child became part of the family. She was admitted to a private English-medium school two years ago.

Jayashree’s troubles started about a month ago when an anonymous caller informed the child helpline that she is raising an orphan child illegally. Acting on this information, officials of the Women and Child Development Department, under the supervision of District Child Protection Officer C V Raman, visited Gubwbi Colony and after inquiring with Jayashree, took custody of the child and admitted her to ‘Amulya Shishugraha’, a government orphanage.

Jayashree, who has been completely shaken by the developments, has been calling on officials of different departments ever since, urging them to prevail upon the Women and Child Development Department to return the girl to her.

Clinging on to hope, Jayashree and her family approached Kalaburagi district in-charge minister Priyank Kharge and Deputy Commissioner R Venkateshkumar on October 1 and sought their help in getting the child back. Jayashree told the minister that she did not know about the legal procedures involved and had rescued the baby on humanitarian grounds and decided to take care of her.  “Even for a humanitarian act, one has to follow rules and procedures, and forced to run around,” she rued. 

Now, Jayashree is very attached to the girl and pleaded that the child be returned to the family.
Kalaburagi district in-charge minister Priyank Kharge assured Jayashree that he will instruct the department officials to hand over the child to her after getting the approval of the Child Welfare Committee. He has asked her to cooperate with the committee and said she could contact him again if she faces any problems.

Meanwhile, District Child Protection Officer C V Raman said he was only following the rules. “As the child helpline received an anonymous complaint, the officials took custody of the child. The matter will be taken up at the Child Welfare Committee meeting which is to be held shortly. If the committee decides to hand over the girl to Jayashree, we will do so”, he said.