Alert: Ukrainian Family Code Amendments and temporary suspension on adoptions to take effect on July 11, 2011
The Ukrainian State Department on Adoptions (SDA) informed the US Embassy this morning that beginning July 11 SDA will no longer have the authority to process adoption cases. This will likely result in a temporary suspension of adoptions from Ukraine. The Ministry of Social Policy will take over as the new adoption authority in Ukraine, but does not yet have Cabinet approval to create a staff and begin processing cases. The Ministry does not yet know when they will be able to resume adoption processing. The amendments to the Ukrainian Family Code mentioned in the previous adoption alert will also go into effect on July 11.
We will ask the Ukrainian government to resume adoptions as quickly as possible. We will also continue to encourage the Ministry of Social Policy to protect adoptions where U.S. prospective adoptive parents have already been approved by the SDA to adopt a particular child.
According to SDA, there are now 139 U.S. families registered with the SDA, some of them already in-country. We will be following new developments closely to understand how it will affect the families currently in process and will be posting relevant updates. In that respect. we recommend that all American families that are currently in Ukraine or have appointments with SDA during the next few weeks send their contact information to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine’s Adoption Unit at: kyivadoptions@state.gov. Families should contact their local adoption service provider for further updates and details.
Ethics, Transparency, Support
~ What All Adoptions Deserve.
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