International Adoption in Ukraine.
Law and General Procedures.
General
provisions
The matters of International Adoption
in Ukraine are adjusted by such legislative acts
as follow:
- Code
about a Marriage and Family of Ukraine (the Code);
-
The adoption of children will be
carried out under the application of person wishing
to adopt the child in the judicial order. The presence
of the prospective adoptive parents at the Court is
obligatory.
The registration of the foreign
citizens, who wish to adopt children, is conducted
by the National Adoption Center (NAC)
at the Ministry of Education of Ukraine extremely.
THERE IS NO LEGAL PROCEDURE FOR ADOPTING THROUGH
GUARDIANSHIP IN UKRAINE.
THERE ARE NO UKRAINIAN ADOPTION
FEES EXCEPT THOSE FOR COURT FILING, NOTARIAL,
TRANSLATION AND SIMILAR SERVICES.
Under US law, prospective American
parents wishing to adopt a child in a foreign country
must, in all cases, initiate the process with the
Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United
States (INS) by filing form I-600A, Application for
Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition. This petition
must be filed at the appropriate INS office in the
United States with jurisdiction over the adoptive
parents' place of residence.
The State Department is pleased
to announce that as of April 19, 2004, the U.S.
Embassy in Kiev adjudicates immigrant visa applications
for Ukrainian adopted children. Prospective adopting
parents who are traveling to Ukraine to complete
an adoption after April 19 are strongly encouraged
to verify that their I-600A and related documents
are at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev - not at the U.S.
Embassy in Warsaw, which had been processing these
cases - before they leave for Ukraine.
REGISTRATION WITH
NATIONAL ADOPTION CENTER
Citizens of the United States wishing
to adopt a child from Ukraine must register with
the National Adoption Center (see Documentary Requirements
below) to begin adoption proceedings in Ukraine.
The National Adoption Center is operated as part
of the Ministry of Education and is the ONLY legal
Ukrainian authority that maintains a database of
children available and qualified for both domestic
and international adoptions. The National Adoption
Center is involved in international adoptions from
the initial to the final stage, e.g. from the moment
prospective parents apply for registration to the
point when, once a child has been identified, the
case is forwarded to a court for adjudication.
The National Adoption Center processes
the documents submitted by adopting parents and enters
them into their database within twenty working days.
Once an application is approved, the prospective
adopting parents will receive an invitation to visit
the Adoption Center. When adopting parents arrive
in Ukraine, the Adoption Center shows them information
about orphans available for international adoption
within the parents' specified age range. The Center
then issues a letter of referral to allow the prospective
parents to visit orphanages to meet, select, and
establish contact with a child. Along with the letter
of referral, adopting 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.
Adoption
Center in Kiev, Ukraine
27-A Taras Shevchenko Boulevard
Kiev, Ukraine 252032
Tel # (380)(44) 246-54-31/32/37/49
Fax # (380)(44) 246-5452/62
Please keep in mind that translators
or interpreters are not available on the staff of
the Adoption Center, so callers or visitors have
to be prepared to speak Ukrainian, or have their
own interpreters.
The intermediary commercial activity
concerning adoption of children, transfer them under
guardianship or on education in families of the citizens
of Ukraine or citizens of other states is forbidden,
and there will be NO
fees except those for court filing, notarial
and translation and similar services.
IMPORTANT: The
temporary changes in the procedures of the Center
for Child Adoption.
The Ministry of Education of Ukraine
informs about the recent changes in the procedures
of the Center for Child Adoption in Ukraine.
According to the information received
by the Consulate, the Center for Child Adoption has
introduced new temporary regulations on
registration of prospective adoptive parents' dossiers
for adoption and placing them on a waiting list.
It is a temporary procedure, which
will be used until the Ukrainian Government approves
the final regulation.
According to these regulations,
after official registration of the adoption dossiers,
prospective adoptive parents will be notified by
mail by the Center for Child Adoption that they have
been registered with the Center for Child Adoption.
After a family receives a letter to this effect,
they should inform the Center for Child Adoption
about the desired appointment date. The Center for
Child Adoption will then schedule them for the next
available dates and send invitations directly to
the families. Upon receiving invitations adoptive
parents should confirm the appointment date via mail,
fax or e-mail. The Center for Child Adoption plans
to serve ten families per day.
Additional information from the
Center for Child Adoption of the Ministry of Education
of Ukraine on above mentioned regulations will be
placed at our web site as soon as the Consulate will
receive it from the Center for Child Adoption.
ADOPTION CENTER
DATABASE
The National Adoption Center recommends
prospective adopting parents who wish to adopt two
or more children to submit a separate, authenticated
dossier for each child. However, submission of two
or more dossiers is not a guarantee adopting parents
will allowed to adopt two or more children. Current
adoption policy is for adopting parents to adopt
one child at a time, unless you adopt a sibling group.
Adoption Center representatives
will not meet with prospective adopting parents who
arrive in Ukraine without an appointment or on a
day other than when they are scheduled for an appointment.
Effective January 1, 2004, the NAC
no longer releases information about adopting parents'
registration numbers and dates of their appointments
to third parties, including to facilitators or others
who have obtained the parents' Power of Attorney.
All communication between the Center and prospective
adopting parents is conducted only by direct exchange
of official letters. The NAC sends two standard letters
to adopting parents: (1) notification regarding the
date and registration number of a dossier and a suggested
month for an appointment, and, (2) an official invitation
for an appointment with the NAC, indicating a specific
date and time. The Center currently uses normal postal
mail when sending these letters, which can delay
notification by three or more weeks. In order to
expedite and facilitate communication, the NAC advises
that families may wish to include one or two prepaid,
self-addressed international express mail envelopes
(DHS or FedEx) with their dossier. These envelopes
are used by the NAC for mailing registration and
appointment letters to U.S. families. The inclusion
of these envelopes with a dossier is completely optional.
The absence/presence of prepaid envelopes has no
relation to expediting the actual process of registration
of a dossier or the scheduling of an appointment
date.
DOCUMENTS REQUIRED
FOR REGISTRATION WITH THE ADOPTION CENTER
Ukrainian law states that foreign
citizens wishing to adopt Ukrainian children must
submit a petition to the Adoption Center, 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 must be
part of the adoption application submitted to the
Ukrainian adoption authority: :
1) Home
Study, issued by a competent authority
in the adopting parents' country, attesting
to their eligibility, specifying their housing
and living conditions, containing their curriculum
vitae, and other information. If a home study
is issued by a non-governmental entity (a private
agency or social worker), a copy of the license
authorizing this entity to conduct pre-adoption
reviews must be attached.
2) Entrance
and permanent residence permit for
the adopted child, issued by the competent
authority in the adopting parents' country.
For American citizens, the Form I-171H, Notice
of Approval of Advance Processing issued by
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(CIS) serves as this document .
3) Proof
of income. Bank statements showing
the adopting parents' yearly income, W-2 forms
or tax returns and a statement from adopting
parents' employer indicating salary. To avoid
confusion, please do NOT copy blank pages of
tax returns .
4) Bill
of health. Adopting parents are
given a specific medical
form to complete. Adopting parents must
demonstrate that they are specifically not
suffering from any kind of psychiatric, communicable,
internal, skin or venereal diseases. There
must also be a statement that parents are not
drug addicts, and that parents are free from
AIDS and syphilis. Medical certificates for
prospective adopting parents should be issued
on official letterhead of the medical office
where the examination took place. Alternatively,
the document can bear a stamp/seal of approving
clinic/doctor, if available. The doctor's signature
must be notarized. If letterheads/seals are
not available, the NAC requests that a copy
of the doctor's medical license be attached
to the form.
5) Copy
of the marriage certificate (if
applicants are a married couple).
6) Copies
of the passports or other identification
papers of prospective adopting parents. A copy
of the Permanent Resident Card should be included,
if one of the parents is not an American citizen.
7) "No
criminal record" statement supplied
by a competent authority for each adopting
parent, attesting to his/her having no criminal
record at the State level. Statements from
the city or county level are not accepted by
the National Adoption Center. If the criminal
background check statement is issued by the
local sheriff/police office (not State authorities),
it should clearly indicate that each prospective
adopting parent has no criminal record in the
state of his/her residence.
8) Adoptive
parents' commitment to register
their adopted child with the Ukrainian Embassy
or Consulate in their new home country within
one month of the completion of adoption. Adopting
parents also agree to supply information about
the adopted child's living conditions and educational
progress to the Ukrainian Consular Office at
least annually during the first 3 years following
the adoption. Under Ukrainian law, an adopted
child remains a Ukrainian citizen until age
18, at which time the child can decide to remain
a Ukrainian citizen .
Please
note that all eight documents must
be separate documents; one cannot be part of
another. The documents remain valid for one year
from the date of issuance. The Adoption Center
prefers that the documents be translated in the
United States, but understands that it may be
difficult to find qualified translators. Therefore,
the Center allows facilitators to come to the
Center with a properly notarized, authenticated
and translated power of attorney to take the
documents to have them translated and notarized
locally.
AUTHENTICATION OF DOCUMENTS: All
U.S. documents submitted to the Ukrainian government/court
must be authenticated. Ukraine is a party to the
Hague Legalization Convention. Generally, U.S. civil
records, such as birth, death, and marriage certificates,
must bear the seal of the issuing office and an apostille
affixed by the state's Secretary of State (an apostille
is a special seal applied to a document to certify
that a document is a true copy of an original). Documents
must be apostilled in the state where they are issued.
Tax returns, medical reports and police clearances
should likewise be authenticated. Prospective adopting
parents should contact the Secretary of State of
the state where documents originated from for instructions
and fees for authenticating documents. Documents
issued by a federal agency must be authenticated
by the U.S. Department of State Authentications Office,
518 23rd St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20520, (202)
647-5002.
For additional information, call the Federal Information
Center: 1-800-688-9889.
For additional information about the effects of joining
the Hague Legalization Convention, please visit this
page.
For additional information about authentication procedures,
see the "Judicial Assistance" page of the
Bureau of Consular Affairs Web site at http://travel.state.gov.
GROUNDS FOR DENIAL
TO REGISTER
No standards have been established
by law for approval or denial of prospective parents'
applications to register. Eligibility is determined
through a personal interview at the Adoption Center.
However, violation of adoption
procedures and regulations (e.g. visiting an orphanage
without the Center's permission, meeting and selecting
children for adoption prior to registration, not
arriving for an interview, etc.) can be considered
as grounds for denial to be registered with the Adoption
Center. In case of registration denial, prospective
parents must be notified of the denial in writing
and all the documents they submit should be returned
to them.
MEETING A CHILD
Once the Adoption Center issues
permission for prospective parents to visit orphanages,
parents may go and meet a child, check medical records
and establish personal contact with a child.
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. Adopting parents
must attend the hearing. 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, unless the judge
grants an "immediate execution," the decision does
not take effect for one month. Such waivers are granted
only when there is clear evidence that a delay in
executing the court decision is not in the best interest
of the child (for example, damage to health). During
the one-month period, the adoption can be appealed.
Once the decision takes effect, the new adopting
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. Please remember
that the pre-adoption birth certificate is not
be returned to the adopting parents. Therefore,
please make sure to that you make a copy before
handing it over to RAGS authorities.
Adopting parents should make sure
that there are no discrepancies in the spelling of
names of the parents and children in the court decree.
If noticed, please ask the court clerk to correct
them immediately. Failure to do so may cause delays
in issuing the post-adoption birth certificate and
in authenticating Ukrainian documents.
Once the post-adoption birth certificate
is obtained, parents may apply for a passport for
their child at the local VVIR (Ukrainian
Office of Visas and Registration).
Parents are required to present
a written and notarized statement requesting that
the travel document be issued. The post-adoption
birth certificate, final court decree, and 4 passport-size
photos of the child have to be submitted along with
the statement.
The new name of the adopted child
in the travel document is spelled in English transliterated
from Ukrainian, so it may look different from what
appears on the parents' passport. There is no need
for concern as long as the child's name in Ukrainian
on the travel document is the same as in the court
decree. However, parents can request that the correct
English spelling be noted on the blank page in the
passport.
At the time the passport is issued,
a special, mandatory stamp is put in it showing that
the child is departing Ukraine for permanent residence
abroad. It is called a "PMP-stamp" in Ukrainian.
Although under Ukrainian law immigration authorities
have up to 10 working days to issue passports or
travel documents for adopted children, they are often
issued before then, especially if the child requires
medical care.
Consular Registration
of Adopted Ukrainian children
Dear Adoptive Parent(s)!
In accordance with Ukrainian Law,
the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco
should include your child (children) adopted in Ukraine,
into the list of Ukrainian citizens permanently residing
in the USA.
In order to process appropriate
paperwork you should mail to the Consulate the following
documents:
- Completed registration
form
;
- Your child(ren)'s original passport(s)
(Travel document of a child);
- A copy of the Ukrainian Court's Decree on adoption
(in Ukrainian).
Please include a return self-addressed
postage-paid envelope.
For FedEx Account number is required. Credit Card
number is not acceptable.
In case you change your place of residence,
you are also requested to inform the Consular Office.
Please be advised that you should
send your application to the Ukrainian Consulate
that has jurisdiction over the district of your residence
by mail.
IMPORTANT: The Consular
District (the area assigned to a Consular
Post for the exercise of consular functions -
Article 1 of the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations and Optional Protocols, 04/24/1963) of
the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco
includes States of Arizona,
California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada , New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington,
Wyoming.
Please be sure to send your child's Registration
Form to the appropriate
Consular Office:
Embassy
of Ukraine
(3350 M St., NW, Washington, DC 20007,
tel. (202) 333-7507, fax (202) 333-7510)
Consulate
General of Ukraine in New York
(240 East 49th Street, New York, NY 10017
tel: (212) 371-5690; fax: (212) 371-5547).
Consulate
General of Ukraine in Chicago
(10
East
Huron
Street,
Chicago,
IL,
60611
t
el:
(312)
642-4388;
fax:
(312)
642-4385
).
Passport Renewal of Adopted Ukrainian children
Dear Adoptive Parent(s)!
Please be informed that to apply for a new Ukrainian passport for your child(ren) you must mail to the Consulate General of Ukraine the following documents:
- Child's original passport (Travel Passport of a Child);
- Completed application form;
- 2 color passport-size pictures;
- Photocopy of the child's birth certificate;
- Photocopy of the child's Social Security card and Green Card;
- Return self-addressed postage-paid envelope.
For FedEx Account number is required. Credit Card number is not accepted.
The Ukrainian legislation requires
that adoptive parents provide the Ukrainian Consulates
with annual reports on adopted child (children).
Please be so kind as to send annual
reports to the Ukrainian Consulates once a year for
the first three years after adoption, and then once
every three years until the child reaches the age of
18.
The Consulate General of Ukraine in
San Francisco will be grateful for your detailed reports
about adopted child's (children's) living conditions
and development and pictures of your family.
Thank you for your time and cooperation.
