Ukraine: Ratification of Hague Adoption Convention to help learn fate of children adopted by foreigners

The ratification by Ukraine of the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption will oblige countries whose citizens adopted Ukrainian children to provide full information about the fate of the adoptees, the Ukrainian president's children's rights commissioner, Yuriy Pavlenko, has said.

“The ratification of the Hague Convention would oblige the countries in which Ukrainian children were adopted to provide us with full information about their fate, as the 89 countries that ratified the Convention include the United States, Italy, France, Spain, Israel, Canada, the citizens of which have adopted the most children over the period of [Ukraine’s] independence,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

According to the children’s ombudsman, the major priorities of the Hague Adoption Convention are support for and the protection of the biological family, as well as comprehensive support for and the development of national adoption.

In addition, he said that inter-country adoption, in accordance with the Convention, takes place only after due consideration of all possibilities for the placement of the child within the state of origin, provided that inter-country adoption is in the child’s best interests.

“The procedure proposed by the Hague Convention ensures that the child is affected as little as possible in all processes and procedures related to inter-country adoptions,” Pavlenko said.

A bill by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on the ratification of the Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption was registered on the Web site of the Verkhovna Rada on January 14, 2013.

The Convention was adopted on May 29, 1993 in The Hague and was ratified by 89 countries.

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