Pakistan bars adoption of youths orphaned by Quake
Pakistan Times Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will not allow the adoption of orphans from the country's devastating earthquake with the government taking care of them itself, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Sunday.

The government has already decided to set up special shelters for at least hundreds of Pakistani children whose parents died in the October-8 disaster, officials said.

Visiting injured children in a hospital, Aziz said all efforts would be made to trace the children's parents and if they are not found, the government would assume full responsibility for them.

"Adoption of these children is completely banned," he told reporters at Islamabad's Poly Clinic hospital.

Directive

He said the government had already directed all hospitals not to allow anyone to adopt orphans.

Hundreds of children are believed to have lost their parents and the number is likely to rise after a fuller picture emerges in the weeks ahead, a senior government official said.

The measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale devastated large swathes of the Himalayas, killing over 45,000 people and leaving more than three million homeless, in addition to thousands injured and almost identical number of the people still missing in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan.●