Families Take In Orphans

Grieving families of children who died in the tsunami are taking in orphans of the disaster without approval, a move denounced Friday by the government and an aid organization.

An official from the Department of Child Care and Protection, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had heard of a dozen cases in Galle and Matara, on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, in which orphaned children had been taken in by families that had lost loved ones. He asked families to stop.

The southern coast took the brunt of Sunday’s massive earthquake-generated tsunami. As of Friday, more than 28,000 people had died on the island, a third of them children.

The Save the Children organization in Sri Lanka said it also had heard of impromptu adoptions.

“The families which are doing this are trying to deal with their own grief ... of having lost their children,” said Maleec Calyanaratne, the group’s spokeswoman. “But they must understand that this is not the way to go about it.”

She said the government’s Child Protection Authority was trying to track down families that had taken in orphans.

“We are advising people that they should follow the proper procedure of adoption.... Otherwise there will be long-term problems,” Calyanaratne said.

She said her group had received applications and requests from parents and families who lost their children to adopt orphans from the tsunami.

“There is no quick-fix solution,” she said. “Before adoption, you need to know a lot about the families. Without those details, you are risking the orphans’ future.”