Responsibility towards orphaned children

The government has rightly decided not to allow adoption of children orphaned in the October 8 catastrophic earthquake. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz announced this decision while visiting injured children in different health care facilities in Islamabad last Sunday, saying that the government would be responsible for the upbringing of these children.
Needless to say, adoption under normal circumstances can make lives, but what the children in the present situation are up against is plain from an incident that is said to have happened at the capital city's premier medical facility, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. According to a press report, three children were abducted from there, while a 13-year-old girl had a lucky escape when the motorbike that her abductor had used to take her away fell into a ditch, and a crowd gathered on hearing her cries for help.
There are many well-meaning people who want to adopt these children to provide them with care and affection. But we already have our share of bad people who would want to adopt them with a view to using them as servants or, in the case of girls, even to push them into prostitution.
Aside from these sinister aspects of the issue, it is important to keep the orphaned siblings together, which is possible only at a proper facility run by the government or a reputable NGO such as SOS Village.
For now, the concerned government agencies have to be vigilant against the danger of abductions. Not only the children under treatment in Islamabad and some other cities need to be protected but also those who have found their way into various relief camps.
It is possible that the parents of some of these unfortunate children may still be alive, not knowing where to look for them. The Prime Minister disclosed that the government has set up a special team to look for the guardians of the children separated from their families.
Hopefully, the work is being done in a systematic manner, with the rescue personnel making sure that when they take children to a relief centre or a hospital, they place on record the name of the location from where they were evacuated.
The whole process of finding parents/guardians is going to take a lot of time and patience. It is important, therefore, that those responsible do not lose spirit with the passage of time. Help may be sought from international organisations that specialise in providing relief to disaster victims. The children without parents must be given proper care and attention in the new homes that the government is to set up for them.
These homes must not replicate the present government-run, quality deficient orphanages; they must focus on offering good education to their charges with a view to making them productive members of society.