The picture of a smiling child in a green sleeveless shirt caught attention of many after it was published in a national Bangla daily last month.    

The reporter received several calls from people who wished to adopt one-and-a-half-year-old Rakibul Hasan being taken care of at a government shelter, home to lost and abandoned children. 

But children of such shelters rarely get a family and parents due to legal barriers and lack of a uniform adoption law in the country. 

Rakibul got himself at Chhotomoni Nibash in the capital's Azimpur in November last year.

A Hindu couple had adopted him from a woman named Taslima. The police recovered him from them following a complaint filed with Shah Ali Police Station, Mirpur by a Muslim couple claiming to be parents of the boy.

Neither of the families became Rakibul's own as DNAs of the Muslim couple did not match his and it has remained a mystery as to who Taslima was and how the boy was adopted by the Hindu couple in the first place, said Selina Akhter, deputy Superintendent of Chhotomoni Nibash in Dhaka.

So, the fate of the little boy finally took him to the shelter that at present accommodates 24 children of different ages up to seven.

Five other Chhotomoni Nibash (home for babies) are in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Khulna and Barisal, run by the social welfare ministry.

"If their [children at the shelters] biological parents or legal guardians come with necessary documents and proof, we hand over the children to them through court," Selina said.

They will otherwise be transferred to one of the 13 government-run orphanages across the country as they reach seven.

At the orphanages called Shishu Paribar, they live until they are 18.

Some 219 children were handed over to their biological parents by the shelters in more than half a century until August 2015, while 915 transferred to the orphanages and only 18 given to people who applied for their guardianship through court.

Legal adoption is only applicable to the Hindus in Bangladesh, said Prof Shahnaz Huda of Dhaka University's law department, explaining that only Hindu males under the Hindu family law were allowed to adopt boys who would enjoy all the rights of a son born to the family.

He automatically inherits property, she added.

One-and-a-half-year-old Rakibul among the children at the Chhotomoni Nibash, a government shelter for the lost and abandoned kids, at Azimpur in the capital. If they are not lawfully claimed, they would be moved to orphanages when they are seven and live a life without the love of parents as there is no uniform adoption law in the country. Photo: Collected

Muslim parents cannot adopt children since family laws governed by the Muslim law do not recognise adoption. They can only apply for guardianship of children through family courts.

"The children [in the shelters] as citizen of Bangladesh are the government's responsibility. It is better that the government takes care of them," said Tariqul Islam, secretary of the ministry.

Guardianship has been discouraged since the 1980s when it was noticed that many people took guardianship of children through court but then instead of taking care of them they abused them, turned them into house helps, he added.

Pointing to practices overseas, DU law Prof Shahnaz said, "They not only have a monitoring mechanism in place but also provide the entire cost of raising the children [orphans] to foster parents."

But in Bangladesh "Who will check whether the children are safe at the houses of the legal guardians?"

Moreover, people here are not keen on applying for guardianship, as the adopted child would not enjoy rights of a biological child, the DU teacher said.

"This system requires a change."

There is nothing better than a family where children begin to learn and which has great influence over them, said Prof Afruja Khanam, head of the child development and social relationship department, Home Economics College in Dhaka. 

"Those who grow up in orphanages are deprived of this. They grow up with other children often fighting among themselves," she said, adding if the atmosphere at the orphanages is not good it has a further negative impact on children.

A uniform adoption law with proper monitoring mechanism can change the fate of many like Rakibul, Shahnaz said.