Emperor Kioyous is now officially a Jamaican.
The 12-week-old boy's nationality became a tricky question as he was born to a surrogate Indian mother, while his biological parents were an American woman and her Jamaican husband.
Born in the Rama's Institute for Fertility in Hyderabad on December 7, 2011, Emperor Kioyous kicked off a controversy when Indian authorities refused to give him a passport citing various rules. Vexed with the steadfast denial of passport to facilitate his travel to the United States, his mother J. Pearl Linda Vanburen Green abandoned the child in the Regional Passport Office in Secunderabad on January 25 and went away.
Perplexed, the authorities located her later and handed over the baby to her, promising to look into the issue.
Subsequently, Ms. Green, a resident of New York, approached the External Affairs Ministry and, with U.S. consulate intervention, managed to get a Jamaican passport for Emperor Kioyous. She left India along with him on Tuesday morning.
Institute officials said Ms. Green and her Jamaican husband had decided to have a baby through a surrogate mother in Hyderabad.
After completing documentation, the institute took up the medical process and on December 7, 2011, the surrogate mother delivered a baby boy. Immediately after that, Ms. Green flew down to the capital from New York to take custody of the child.
