The Chairman of the UNBA Committee commented on the adoption of children abroad

National legislation gives preference to adoption by Ukrainian citizens. However, when such opportunities are exhausted, foreigners can also adopt children. In the context of the full-scale invasion, when many children found themselves abroad, the issue became especially important.

Experts discussed adoption during the war in the studio of Ukraine World News. Larysa Gretchenko, chairman of the UNBA Committee on Family Law, took part in the discussion.

«We can have different models of adoption of children when it comes to their transfer outside Ukraine, - she said. - There are no standard situations. Each case concerning the adoption of a child is so individual that it is impossible to launch a single model. And it seems to me that the changes that are taking place today (perhaps they are slow, unpredictable, chaotic), but they are moving to regulate the relations that are being formed today under the influence of wartime factors».

L. Gretchenko pointed out that intercountry adoption under martial law has been effectively suspended. However, many children were moved abroad as part of the evacuation from danger. And the Government promptly responded to possible threats to children's rights. Thus, by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of 24.05.2022 No. 618, the Procedure for Adoption and Supervision of the Rights of Adopted Children was amended to include consular offices in the process of transferring children.

Thus, today, if an adopted child (as evidenced by a court decision) has been temporarily relocated (evacuated) outside Ukraine during the introduction of a state of emergency or martial law in Ukraine, the adoptive parents are obliged to pick up the child in the presence of an official of a Ukrainian consular office upon presentation of a package of documents.

An official of the consular office of Ukraine in the presence of the adoptive parents draws up an act on the transfer of the adopted child, which indicates the fact of acceptance of the child by the adoptive parents, the person who took care of the child before its transfer to the adoptive parents, the official of the consular office of Ukraine in whose presence the child was transferred, the identity of the adoptive parents, their signatures, the details of the court decision on the adoption of the child, the date and place of transfer of the child to the adoptive parents.

Such an act is transmitted, among other things, to the National Social Service, which transmits copies to the children's service at the place of local registration of the child and to the children's service that prepared the conclusion on the expediency of adoption and its compliance with the interests of the child.

«Ukrainian legislation in the field of child protection today is focused on international standards that define the principle of the best interests of the child. We are talking not only about orphans. We are talking about children deprived of parental care, who today temporarily do not have a certain status because it is impossible to establish whether their parents are alive in the temporarily occupied territories. And today we see that the number of children in need of care is increasing», - says chairman of the UNBA Committee.

She recalled that the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 331 of 22.03.2024 introduced the payment of temporary assistance for children in respect of whom the fact of absence of parental care was established and who were temporarily placed in a family of relatives, friends, foster family or family-type orphanage. The same applies to support for children without parental care who have been temporarily placed in the families of relatives without the appropriate status.