Adoption in Ukraine -- Legal regulation

[] home page Three years of experience in helping couples from the USA, Canada and Germany in their independent adoptions | read this! | procedure | legal info | dossier | useful links | mail us | Contact us now: info@adoption-ukraine.de UKRAINIAN LEGISLATION ON ADOPTION NATIONAL ADOPTION CENTER DATABASE REGISTRATION WITH ADOPTION CENTER MEETING A CHILD COURT HEARING OBTAINING A TRAVEL DOCUMENT LEGALIZATION PROCEDURE APPLYING FOR A VISA UKRAINIAN LEGISLATION ON ADOPTION Constitution of Ukraine Family and Marriage Code of Ukraine Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine Resolution on Adoption by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Law on citizenship of Ukraine NATIONAL ADOPTION CENTER DATABASE Citizens of foreign countries may adopt only those Ukrainian children that are qualified for adoption; have been registered with the Adoption Center for one year without any Ukrainian family coming forward to adopt them or become their guardians; suffer from a disease (according to the list of diseases issued by the Ministry of Public Health Protection); in this case, one-year waiting requirement may be waived. Orphanages are responsible for providing full and complete information on children available for adoption to the Adoption Center database in a timely fashion (within 1 week). The local office of the Ministry of Education creates a file for each child available and qualified for adoption and prepares an application that contains basic information about the child and his/her photo. They retain the application at their office for one month, during which they encourage Ukrainian families to adopt the child. After being kept at the district office for one month, the application is forwarded to the regional office of the Ministry of Education. This office has one month to find a Ukrainian adoptive family for the child. If the child still has not been adopted by Ukrainian citizens, his/her application is further forwarded to the Adoption Center to be input into its database. Once a child's application reaches the Adoption Center, the Center has twelve months to find a Ukrainian family for the child. If the legal status of the child changes, the guardian authority will have to notify the Adoption Center of this change within seven days. Children who, in accordance with list of diseases of the Ministry of Public Health Protection, are determined to be unhealthy are not subject to the 'one-plus-one-plus-twelve month' waiting period and will be available for international adoptions immediately. REGISTRATION WITH ADOPTION CENTER Prospective parents wishing to adopt a child from Ukraine must register with the Adoption Center to begin adoption proceedings in Ukraine According to Ukrainian law foreign citizens wishing to adopt Ukrainian children must submit an application to the Adoption Center ( Petition for Adoption ), requesting to be registered as prospective adoptive parents and to be permitted to visit orphanages in order to select, meet and establish contact with an orphan. The following documents should be presented along with the petition, this is so called dossier: 1) Statement obtained from a social worker/agency, stating parent's eligibility for adoption, specifying his/her housing and living conditions, containing curriculum vitae, and other information The copy of license of the social worker/agency is required 2) Document from competent authority in the adoptive parents' country permitting entering and living for the adopted child in that country. In the USA it's INS approval (form I-171H) . 4) Bill of health issued in the name of each of the adoptive parents. Comment: Not just a general statement that you are healthy, but a declaration that you are specifically not suffering from any kind of psychic, communicable, internal, skin or venereal diseases as well as that you are not drug addict; also, AIDS and syphilis tests must be included 5) Copy of the marriage certificate (if applicants are a married couple). 6) Copies of the passports 7) "No criminal record" statement supplied by a competent authority for each adoptive parent, attesting to his/her having no criminal record. 8) Adoptive parents' commitmen t , if granted the adoption, to have the child registered with Ukraine's consular office in their home country within one month; to supply information (at least once a year) about an adopted child's living conditions and educational process to the Ukrainian consular office, to arrange for consular officers to keep in touch with the adopted child, and to retain the child's Ukrainian citizenship until 18 years of age. Once the documents are legalized, they must be translated into Ukrainian and notarized 9) In additional, you have to prepare the Power of Attorney (for the facilitator/translator and for spouses if needed) The Adoption Center must, within ten days (in reality it about one month), process the documents submitted by adoptive parents and enter them into the database. Once parents identify the sex and the age of the child they wish to adopt, the Adoption Center shows them applications of orphans available for adoption within this age group. The Center will then issue a letter of referral to allow the prospective parents to visit orphanages and to meet, select and establish contact with the children. Along with a letter of referral, adoptive parents will be given their documents, bound, numbered, sealed, and signed by an official in charge of the Adoption Center, with a separate sheet specifying the number of pages and the prospective parents' registration file code. MEETING A CHILD Once the Adoption Center issues permission for prospective parents to visit orphanages, parents may go there and meet with a child(ren), check medical records and establish personal contact with him/her. When a child is selected for adoption, the Adoption Center then removes the child's name from the database of orphans available for adoption. COURT HEARING It is important to mention that, in compliance with recent changes in and amendments to the Family and Marriage Code of Ukraine, the power to approve or deny an adoption is solely with an individual judge. The judge's decision, in turn, will be based on a review of various documents of each individual adoption case during the court hearing, where adoptive parents have to be present. The law states that adoptive parents must attend the hearing. The Adoption Center has stated that this requirement will be strictly enforced following the recent resolution of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. In cases where one of the parents cannot be present at the hearing due to a compelling reason (e.g. major surgery, disability etc.), a judge may permit one parent to provide a power of attorney to the other parent. The packet of documents for the adoption case is presented to the judge after being carefully examined by the Adoption Center. As a general rule, the judge's decision is announced and issued the day of the hearing. However, it does not take effect for 30 calendar days, within which it can be appealed. Once the decision takes effect, the new parents are granted parental rights and legal responsibility for the child. OBTAINING A TRAVEL DOCUMENT RAGS (Ukrainian office of vital records) will issue a post-adoption certificate of birth for an adopted child based on the final court decree and the original (pre-adoption) birth certificate only. Once you obtain the post-adoption birth certificate, you may apply for a travel document (passport) for the child at the local VVIR (office of visas and registrations). You will be required to present the post-adoption certificate of birth and the final court decree. LEGALIZATION PROCEDURE According to Ukrainian law all documents issued in Ukraine that will be used in foreign countries should be appropriately legalized by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then they should be officially translated and presented to the Embassy of the parents country of origin. The Embassy officials authenticate new documents of your children. APPLYING FOR A VISA Each Embassy has their own regulation for visa application for adopted children. Please, be aware that Parents are responsible for registering the child with the Ukrainian Consulate in the country of residence within one month after adoption, and for sending yearly updates to the Ukrainian Consulate. The child should keep Ukrainian citizenship until 18 years of age, then he/she may refuse to have Ukrainian citizenship. Ukraine does not have double citizenship standard. Information from the Web-site of US Embassy in Ukraine was used during the preparation of this page. top | read this! | procedure | legal info | dossier | useful links | mail us | _______________________________________________________________________________________________