All-Ukrainian forum of adoptive parents

Yesterday on the All-Ukrainian forum of adoptive parents the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko summed up the results of Adoption Year in Ukraine and rewarded some officials and adopters.

Ukrainians wishing to adopt a child have to stand in a queue. To date there about 1000 families in this line. Although most families want to adopt children under 5 years old. But not many of them want to become parents for older children.

Actually it is not much easier to adopt for Ukrainians than for foreign adopters. Ukrainians also have to pay bribes for adoption. The only advantage of Ukrainians is the possibility to adopt children at the age of 2 months. Also it is easier for Ukrainians to defend their rights applying to law machinery or court. But not so many Ukrainians are legally competent. The foreigners have by the adoption almost the same scope of rights as Ukrainians, but it is much more expensive for them to defend their rights of adoptive families, because it requires a long stay in Ukraine.

Would it be more complicated to adopt from Ukraine next year? There is no saying.
There are two factors that won’t be favorable for national adoptions: first, there won’t be governmental popularization of national adoption next year, and secondly, the rapid worsening of economical situation in Ukraine may change priorities of many potential Ukrainian adoptive families.

If you are going to start your adoption procedure, don’t hesitate – file the documents.

The adoption procedure could be changed again

Human rights commissioner in Ukrainian Parliament Nina Korpachova proposed an amendment to the draft of the decree of Cabinet regarding the Adoption procedure and control for observance of rights of children after adoption.

According to press-cutting service of the Ombudsman, primarily the amendments concern consideration of interest both of adoptive families, and of adopted children, including establishing order in the adoption procedure and elimination of any discrimination by conducting adoption. The Commissioner proposed to amend the list of obligations of foreign adoptive families by adopting Ukrainian children, under which the right of children is protected to keep Ukrainian citizenship before attainment of majority.

It is very important, because in some countries upon a fact of adoption by foreigner the child is admitted to citizenship of country-recipient. In spite of requirements of point 6 of clause 283 of Family Code of Ukraine, that provides the right of adopted children to choose citizenship on reaching 18 years age, by crossing border of some countries the children are automatically admitted to citizenship of such countries, forfeiting their rights to choose citizenship in the future. At that in case of cancelation of adoption guardianship authorities of such countries determine further lot of such child without agreement with appropriate state authorities of Ukraine.

The same has happened with children adopted by US citizens John Kruger and Hilts couple, who were forejudged parental rights because of crimes against children. The future of their children, who has under US legislation lost Ukrainian citizenship, is deciding now by US guardianship authorities without admitting to these children even Ukrainian diplomats.

Accepted by Ukrainian government proposals of the Commissioner to the new Adoption procedure and control over observance of rights of children after adoption will bar from occurring similar situations in future.

Notice on SDAPRC Unused Quotas

On October 14, 2008 the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports published official Order #3899 approving revised procedures for submission of new adoption dossiers from foreign citizens in the fourth quarter of 2008. The annual adoption dossiers quota for 2008 previously had been set at 1,453. Although all of these were booked within the first months of this year, not all of these families actually submitted dossiers. As a result, the SDAPRC (State Department for Adoptions and Protection of the Rights of the Child) has now opened the unused slots for new adoption dossiers. These slots are not an increase in the annual quota; rather they still fall under the annual limit of 1,453 dossiers. This number is not subdivided by country or by specific categories of children.

The SDAPRC resumed acceptance of new dossiers on October 14th, 2008 and will continue accepting dossiers for 2008 until November 27th, 2008.

Order #3899 includes two attachments, one of them presenting the number of children available for intercountry adoptions, sorted by age and health condition, as of September 1, 2008. Please note that these statistics are independent of annual quota set by the Ministry (noted above), but provide a useful overview of ages and health condition of children available for adoption. The second attachment is the schedule for submission of adoption dossiers from foreign adoptive parents. Both documents are below.

Attachment 1

Analysis of the numbers of children available for intercountry adoptions according to their age and health condition
(based on the information from the central databank as of September 1, 2008)

Age of children	Number of children (% from the total number)	Health condition Healthy or with correctable medical problems Serious health problems
Under 3 years old	551 (2,6 %)	--- 551
3 – 5 years old	1324 (6,1 %)	109 1215
6 – 11 years old	5408 (24,9 %)	3011 2397
12 – 17 years old	14418 (66,4 %)	11337 3081
Total	21701 (100,0 %)	14457 7244

Ludmyla Volynets, Director of the SDAPRC

Attachment 2

Schedule for submission of the dossiers from foreign adoptive parents in the IV-th quarter of 2008

Day of the week	Recommendation for the child’s age from the competent authority of the country of residence of adoptive parents*
Monday	Dossiers for children under 6 years old and those that have no specific limits for the child’s age
Tuesday	Dossiers for children 6-11 years old
Wednesday	Dossiers for children 12 years and older
Thursday	Dossiers for children 12 years and older

Ludmyla Volynets, Director of the SDAPRC

*For U.S. citizens this is the recommendation of the social worker in the homestudy

** source link http://kyiv.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_notice_0119_eng.html

Myths and realities of adoption from Ukraine

Information from interview with Lyudmila Volynets, director of SDA.

There are a lot of myths around the inter-country adoptions. One is the prevailing opinion that foreigners adopt sick children. In fact, every third candidate for the adoptive parents, who has received an invitation from SDA for meeting with the child refuses to adopt because of the health of the child. Almost every child has a «bouquet» of all sorts of (often incurable) disease - an average of 3 to 11 diseases «per capita». Overall, the total numbers of children adopted by foreigners less than 1% have severe health problems (Down syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, genetic diseases).

The belief that foreigners are willing to adopt adult children is also untrue. In fact, 80% of foreign applicants wish to adopt a child under 5 years old. With regard to adult children, they tend to be adopted by families in which the children rested on rehabilitation programs abroad.

Not more than a myth is statement that foreigners are willing to adopt all brothers and sisters from one family. «In every second (!) case the question arises as to separation of brothers and sisters because of their health status and age», - notes Volynets. According to her, the problem is compounded by the fact that brothers and sisters are the vast majority of children available for adoption - 85%.

According to statistics, today the family of Ukrainian citizens raised more than 35 thousand of adopted children, yet more than 30 thousand children have legal grounds to be adopted. At the same time, polls show that almost every fifth Ukrainian family (19%) is ready to adopt a child. Here arises the paradox: despite the fact that thousands of Ukrainians could potentially adopt children and 30 thousand children are ready for adoption, in fact, annually adopted by some 5 thousand children, of whom less than 2 thousand - by citizens of Ukraine.

«The problem is that when it comes to adoption, all imagine a baby, who was given birth yesterday, today adopted. However, it is not so.” According to her, in general, Ukrainian citizens (as well as foreigners) focused on the adoption of healthy babies and healthy children under 5 years old.

But only 5% of the 30 thousand children are children under 5 years old. Only 5% of them are relatively healthy. Thus, «young and healthy», which want to adopt all, regardless of country of residence, from 30 thousand come up to around 75 people. The conclusion made by the experts, terrible and almost despairing: Ukraine simply do not have children who are potentially willing to adopt.

2008 is the year of national adoption in Ukraine

The President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko issued an edict “On conducting in Ukraine in 2008 the Year of supporting national adoption and other forms of fosterage of orphans and children without parental care” dated 11 of December, 2007.

The main purpose of this document is to support Ukrainians who wish to adopt a child. From here on the adoption process for Ukrainians became simpler. Moreover Ukrainian families who adopted a child receive the public assistance in the amount of 12000 UAH. For most Ukrainians it is significant amount. Also Ukrainian government takes measures to explain Ukrainian citizens the adoption process. So Ukrainian actually does not need any facilitators or agencies. Therefore such steps cause increasing interest of Ukrainians to adoption.

What does it mean for foreigners?
In 2008 to adopt from Ukraine for foreigners became harder. You may see statistics in my previous post. But do not despair! Ukraine will ratify in the near future convention on international adoption and the situation should definitely change for better.

In my next posts I will continue telling about latest changes in adoption process in Ukraine.

The eye-opener for you - Official statistics of SDA

Hi, everyone. I have just read posts in yahoo group "Adoption from Ukraine" about people who come back from Ukraine without a child. And that Ukraine is unpredictable. I disagree because information about adoption in Ukraine is open. And state authorities including SDA in most cases do not distort it. Of course all official information is in Ukrainian or Russian language and I agree that it is hard for you to find actual information in English.

And now please look through this official SDA statistics for the 1st quarter of 2008:

The number of foreigners received: 379
178 of them (46%) selected and adopted child during the first visit.
201 of them (54%) have applied for the second visit.

The reasons of the second applications of the foreigners:
• Couldn’t select a child during the first visit because of inconsistence of state of health of the child with expectations of candidates – 82 (41%)
• Had selected a child during the first visit but refused from adoption because of state of health of the child – 119 (59%)

So, you see, this situation is not a secret. Just take it in your consideration.

Are you eligible to adopt from Ukraine?

You have right to adopt a child from Ukraine if you are simultaneously:

1. capable person
2. not younger than 21
3. at last 15 years older than an adopting child
4. married
5. have permanent source of revenue
6. have a habitation
7. not being treated for psycho neurological disease or narcotic dependence

In April 2008 the Family Code of Ukraine was amended so that it is prohibited to adopt children by foreigners that are unmarried.

So if you are single and want to adopt a child Ukraine is not your choice.

The same concerns to homosexual couples, because unisexual couples are also not allowed to be adopters.