Childless Iranian couples can adopt children only if they have been married for a minimum of five years and one of the spouses is at least 30 years old. But for a physician couple, the court has to decide whether they can adopt or not.
According to the law, people with incurable diseases and drug and alcohol addicts cannot adopt children. Also, adopters should be able to support the child financially. Additionally, they should bequeath 1/3 share of their property to the adopted child, Salametnews website reported.
Qualified single women can only adopt children older than 6-7 years. Single women are at the end of the queue when it comes to priorities for adoption.
Once an adopted child is brought home, a 6-month period called “supervised trial custody” begins during which a social worker visits the family at least three times. Only after the successful completion of the period, the final decree of adoption is issued for the adoptive parents.
Earlier, Anoushiravan Mohseni Bandpei, head of the State Welfare Organization (SWO) said that around 22,000 children are 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 1,500, while it was only 100 four years ago.
According to a new law, babies of homeless addicted women taken away at birth from their mothers are handed over to SWO welfare centers. So far hundreds of babies have been handed over to the centers.
Presently, 80% of kids in welfare centers are not orphans but have irresponsible, negligent and addicted parents.
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. Biological parents sometimes come back after some years to claim their parental rights, and wrest their children from the adopter by a court order.
