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In the past decades, thousands of children from India and other countries left their original families and homeland to be adopted elsewhere (Selman, 2020b). Adoption is usually a joyful and moving event for the adoptive parents, but it is preceded by a significant event: the separation of a mother and her child. This article focuses on the process before the adoption. The perspective of the mothers, their experiences, feelings, considerations, priorities, and ultimately their decision-making about whether or not to relinquish their child, is central to this article. In my research, completed in 2008, I focused on mothers in Tamil Nadu, South India. During the research, I focused on legal adoptions. Research into illegal adoptions is important from a legal perspective and in the context of human rights. However, from a cultural-anthropological perspective and for the sake of delineation, I chose to study the decision-making process of mothers in legal procedures. I sought contact with all NGOs in and around Chennai (South India) that had a permit to place children for adoption in foreign and/or Indian adoptive families during my fieldwork period in 2002 and 2003. Through these institutions, I wanted to gain access to unmarried mothers who were facing the dilemma of whether or not to relinquish their child.

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