Mangalore: India-born Maria Chaya Schupp (39), who was adopted by a German couple when she was six, has come to the city again on Wednesday, determined to find her biological mother.
Speaking to reporters, Chaya said her search began around 15 years ago but even a directive from the Division Bench of the High Court issued in March 2013 to the police to trace her parents has not helped.
Schupp said, she was adopted from Nirmala Social Welfare Centre at Ullal, near Mangalore, in 1981. “The image of my mother waving while leaving me at the Centre is still vivid in my mind. I have still not been able to trace her despite my repeated visits to India,” she says.
Schupp says she has so far not secured the address of her biological mother from the centre in Ullal. “They have turned me away stating that there are no records related to my mother.” The only record maintained by the centre has been that of baptism done in July 1980. The Ullal police have not made any progress on her complaint filed in 2006 despite the High Court directive, she adds.
Ms. Schupp’s advocate Dinesh Hegde Ullepady said every child given in adoption has the right to know about her parents. Proper records about parents and the deed to relinquish the child should be part of the proceedings leading to grant of adoption.
A forum of citizens from Mangalore has been formed to support the case of Ms. Schupp. “We do not want other children to suffer like Ms. Schupp. We want the government to have a proper system of adoption,” says Uday Kumar, a businessman and a member of the Forum for Chaya’s Justice.
Besides, she is pursuing her doctorate thesis as part of an exchange programme between the University of Kassel, Germany, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. The thesis will document the lives of women in the red-light areas of Mumbai and how they cope with home and work.
Chaya, who started working on her thesis in 2011, plans to submit it early next year. “Only half of the work is done. I have interviewed countless sex workers and have come to understand their plight,” she said.
The major focus of her thesis is to study the system. Though Germany has many red-light districts, Chaya does not want to comment on it or compare it with the one in Mumbai.
According to her, women have been pushed into sex trade majorly due to poverty and violence at home. “There are different hues of women I have seen. Many of those who have joined voluntarily due to poverty do not enjoy it. Some come to make a fast buck. Some are forced into it. Some are happy and others unhappy,” said Chaya, who has studied women’s issues. “I like to study issues affecting women. My focus has been violation of women’s rights,” she said.
