The revised regulations in the law on adoption have been notified to all provinces; however they have not been appreciated by most applicants wanting to adopt children, says Anoushiravan Mohseni Bandpei, head of the State Welfare Organization (SWO).
“At present 80% of kids in SWO welfare centers are not orphans but have irresponsible and negligent parents. In other words, only 20% of the children are orphans,” he told Mehr News Agency.
In the earlier law, adoption of children with negligent parents was not possible, but with amendments to the law, applicants can now adopt, but temporarily.
The revised law has come in for criticism namely because adopters say they want permanent custody of children.
If biological parents come back after some years to claim their parental rights, they may wrest their children from the adopter by a court order. This will put adoptive parents in a quandary, and also cause social and psychological trauma to the kids.
Regulations protecting unaccompanied and unsupervised children and teenagers that were approved in August, in fact, determine the conditions of adoption and custody and have some major differences from the law first passed 30 years ago.
Option for Single Women
Before the new regulations were approved, only families without children could adopt a child but the new law allows couples with children to do so. The revised law also facilitates single women over the age of 30 years to adopt.
Further, the new regulations have increased the age of adoption from 12 to 16.
There are around 22,000 children currently living in 600 welfare centers across the country. The figure is expected to increase in the coming years as the number of female street addicts with children has increased to 1500, while it was only 100 four years ago. Thus, it places a heavy financial burden on the SWO.
On average, 7.5 families are waiting to adopt a child; however the figure is not same for all children; while healthy children under the age of six months who don’t have parents are more in demand for adoption, few are willing to take custody of older children and kids with health problems or irresponsible parents.
Some provisions of the law still need to be amended to help give every child an equal chance of finding a home. This can reduce the financial burden on state coffers and also benefit children who are not adopted, from better quality services.
