External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has requested her cabinet colleague Maneka Gandhi for an investigation into the adoption of Sherin Mathews, the three-year-old Indian girl who died at her new home in the US earlier this month. Maneka Gandhi is the Women and Child Development Minister.
"I have requested Maneka Gandhi Minister for Women and Child Development for a thorough investigation into the adoption process of Baby Saraswati SherinMathews who has been killed by her foster father Wesley Mathews in United States," Ms Swaraj tweeted on Friday evening.
Sherin's adoptive father Wesley Mathews was charged on Monday with an injury to a child, a first-degree felony that carries a maximum punishment of 99 years in prison, the Texas police said. The body of Sherin was found in a culvert under a road. Activists in India have called for an immediate end to intercountry adoptions, which they say fail to protect children. "Intercountry adoptions have become a lucrative market where children are effectively sold," said activist Sujata Mody.
