Every Child Deserves Loving Family Lineage Preservation Rights (Volume 3)

Families offer love, protection, and emotional security that institutions cannot replicate. Relative adoption allows children to remain within their extended family, preserving bonds, cultural identity, and continuity while ensuring smoother emotional adjustment. In India, such adoptions reflect the principle of subsidiarity by prioritising family-based care over institutionalisation. The special issue “From Lineage Preservation to Child Rights” examines relative adoption through a child-centric lens, analysing the impact of the Adoption Regulations, 2022, the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, and HAMA. While relative adoptions may not always align fully with international frameworks like the UNCRC and Hague Convention, they often best serve a child’s interests in India’s kinship-oriented social context, provided essential safeguards are ensured. Tracing the evolution of adoption in India from lineage-based customs to rights-based legal frameworks, the book highlights relative adoption as a culturally rooted yet child-focused practice. It underscores the need to balance international standards with indigenous caregiving systems that offer stability, belonging, and identity. The book provides a comprehensive overview of India’s adoption landscape, explains legal procedures for relative adoptions, compares the JJ Act and HAMA, and discusses kinship care and emerging trends—ultimately advocating for a unified adoption law to strengthen child protection and family-based care.