You're reading: Yanukovych proposed to introduce international norms in adoption law, says Pavlenko

President's Commissioner on the Children's Rights Yuriy Pavlenko has said that the president's bill on the ratification of the "Convention on the protection of children's rights and cooperation in international adoption" neither simplifies nor complicates the adoption process in Ukraine, while establishing international standards. 

“It’s wrong to say that the adoption procedure will simplify. On the contrary, first of all, the Hague Convention is aimed at improving the procedures of inter-state adoption, resolving issues with international legal cooperation in this sphere and the ratification of the Hague Convention by Ukraine, and of course, [this] will cause changes the procedure of inter-state adoption, taking into consideration international standards,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday, Jan.16.

Pavlenko said that changes to the inter-state adoption procedure “will by no means complicate or simplify this procedure, it just has to match the international standards.”

According to the children’s ombudsman, the Hague Convention foresees that inter-state adoption is possible only after the proper consideration of all the possible options for placing a child with a family in the country of its origin, and if only inter-state adoption is the best interests of the child.

However, he stressed that the ratification the Hague Convention by Ukraine will in no way remove restrictions concerning foreigners in the Ukrainian law.

“This in particular is the one-year moratorium on the adoption of the child by the foreigners after the declaration of the child as an orphan. It means that in the first year, only Ukrainian families could adopt [an orphan]. There is also a ban on foreigners adopting Ukrainian children younger than five years. Single and unmarried foreigners cannot adopt Ukrainian children. Moreover, the disparity in years between child and potential adoptive father must total not more than 45 years,” Pavlenko said.

The bill of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on the ratification of the “Convention on protection of children’s rights and cooperation in international adoption ” was registered on the Website of Verkhovna Rada on January 14, 2013.