We were approached by a spouse, citizens of the Russian Federation, who adopted a child in Moscow, whom the mother, a citizen of the Republic of Tatarstan, refused in the maternity hospital and gave her consent to the adoption. According to Russian law, if within six months a child born on the territory of the Russian Federation, whose parents are foreign citizens, is not awarded the citizenship of his parents, then this child receives Russian citizenship.
These spouses, without waiting for the expiration of these 6 months, adopted the child through the court. But the employees of the Consulate of Tajikistan, having learned about this, demanded the cancellation of the adoption and took the child from the family, placing him in a baby house in Moscow with subsequent sending to the baby house of the Republic of Tajikistan. According to our data, this child is illegitimate and the family of the child's mother has not expressed a desire to take the child into foster care. Thus, this child will live and be raised in an orphanage. Although he could live in Moscow with his parents who have an apartment, a country house, a stable income and with whom he would have been an only child. Every time during a telephone conversation, the spouse (adoptive parent) cannot hold back tears, calling the child "his only boy."
The reason for this, Article 127 Family Code RT according to which only citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan can be adoptive parents. In 2016, we have 46,200 children who live and are brought up in orphanages and boarding schools. The birth rate of our population is quite high, and during the years of independence, the population of our country has increased by 60%. This is not counting the large outflow of Russian-speaking residents of the Republic of Tajikistan to other countries for permanent residence. We also have 31.5% of the poor. A child who is brought up in an orphanage is given minimum pension in the amount of 156 somoni (about $ 20) monthly. Also, at the present time, upon reaching the age of majority, the state cannot provide them with housing and work.
So why do we prohibit foreign adoption of children?
For comparison, if we take the birth rate in Russia, then we see that in the Russian Federation for all the years of independence only since 2013 there has been an increase in the birth rate of 22,700 people, before that the death rate exceeded the birth rate. But at the same time, Russia allows international adoption. So, in accordance with the official data of the website of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, foreign citizens adopted:
As we see only for last years the number of children adopted by foreigners has decreased as the state pursues a policy of supporting families and motherhood. So the amount of maternity capital for the second and third child since 2015 in Russia is 453,023 rubles (7,440 US dollars). We pay 80 somoni (10.2 US dollars) for the second child and 40 somoni (5.1 US dollars) for the third child.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child in Article 21 states:
States Parties that recognize and / or permit the existence of an adoption system ensure that the best interests of the child are given the highest priority and they: paragraph b “recognize that adoption in another country may be considered an alternative way of caring for the child if the child may not be placed in foster care or placed with a family capable of raising or adopting him, and if it is not possible to provide any suitable care in the child's country of origin ”.
In this case, our laws directly contradict this convention as they limit the right of children to foreign adoption. There is also another Hague convention, the Convention for the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Foreign Adoption, which has been signed and ratified by 77 countries around the world, including our neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. These countries also allow international adoptions for the benefit of children. So in Kazakhstan in 2014, 101 children were adopted by foreigners.
Opponents of foreign adoption insist that in foreign countries we will not be able to monitor the due observance of the rights of children and they may be subject to violence by adoptive parents. So, according to statistics, over 15 years (from 1993 to 2006) in Russia, 80,000 children were adopted by foreigners, of which 5 died and 16 became victims of accidents. This statistic shows that the percentage of 21 out of 80,000 is 0.026... Isolated cases of child abuse or return for political purposes were covered through the media to prevent the adoption of Russian children by US citizens.
Should we keep our children in orphanages, prohibiting foreign adoption, when, say, the same Russian family would want to adopt a child? Of course, the indisputable preference for the adoption of children should be given to Tajik families, but as mentioned above, many residents of our country are below the poverty line and do not have sufficient funds and conditions for the adoption of children. Also, few people want to adopt children with disabilities. But again, according to statistics, over the past 2 years, 153 children with disabilities have been adopted in Russia by foreigners.
We hope that soon our legislators will make appropriate changes to the legislation to allow foreign adoption in the interests of children of Tajik citizens in the framework of international conventions and norms.
Sources:
- Asia Plus: Demographic Anomalies of Tajikistan, What Can an Orphan in Tajikistan Count on ?;
- The website of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation;
- Website of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan;
- Wikipedia;
- Convention "On the Protection of the Rights of the Child".
Last week, the parliament of the republic approved amendments to the legislation of Tajikistan, according to which the procedure for the adoption and adoption of orphans is simplified. How the procedure is going now - in the material "AP".
The LOWER Chamber of Parliament supported the amendments proposed by the government of the republic to the laws "On state duties", "On state registration of acts of civil status", as well as to the Family and Civil Procedure Codes of the Republic of Tajikistan, according to which the procedure for adoption and adoption of orphaned citizens of the country is simplified.
As the Minister of Education and Science of Tajikistan Nuriddin Said noted in his speech on this issue, today over 46.2 thousand orphans are officially registered in the country, of which more than 2 thousand are full-time orphans.
According to the minister, currently over 1.7 thousand citizens of Tajikistan are on the waiting list for the adoption or adoption of orphans. For five years, families have found about 4 thousand children in the country.
President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon made a proposal to simplify the procedure for adoption and adoption in the country back in 2013, having noted this in his message to the parliament of the republic. “Thousands of orphans are being brought up in orphanages. Who is to blame for this? We are our bureaucracy. People have been unable to achieve adoption for years, and this leads to an increase in the illegal sale of children, ”the president said at the time.
Long procedure
TOLIB and his wife lived for over ten years, but they did not have children. In the end, they decided to adopt a child. They flatly refused to take the child from relatives, arguing that the child would grow up and learn about his past. Therefore, they turned to the department of guardianship and guardianship of the hukumat of the Rudaki district - at their place of residence.
We were given a long list of documents that we had to prepare, - says Tolib, - only 16 items. After we collected all these documents, from the guardianship authority of the Rudaki district they sent us to the child rights department of the city of Dushanbe, where they put us on a queue for adoption. In total, we went through about ten instances, and together with the waiting line, this entire cycle took 2 years! Of course, during this time 3-4 times we were offered to take out of turn a child with some deviations, for example, with one short leg or a squint, but I firmly wanted to take healthy child and therefore refused. When the turn came, we were informed that there is one refusenik, who was given birth to by a 19-year-old student. The child was in the capital's baby house # 1, and from time to time I went to visit him. I knew that this child would be ours. To be sure, we even found the biological mother of the child and re-took the refusal receipt from her.
Finally, the day came when, according to a court decision, a married couple crossed their own threshold with the baby. According to Tolib, before that they came from the guardianship authorities and checked the living conditions of the family. Although his wife was a housewife, she was engaged in sewing and this occupation replenished the family budget. Tolib himself works in law enforcement, so he makes good money.
Since the family lived with Tolib's parents, after a while they decided to separate.
At that time, there was an order from the mayor of the city, according to which citizens who adopted two children will be provided with separate housing, says Tolib. - Therefore, we decided to resubmit the documents. Now for the adoption of some baby.
The bureaucratic mechanism started up again. I had to re-collect the documents, although, to be honest, the representatives of the bodies for the protection of children's rights should have picked up all the old documents of the married couple - and the procedure would have been simplified. While Tolib was running around the offices, his wife suddenly fell ill and took to bed. Their son was a year old when she passed away ...
For the sake of the child, Tolib married a second time. But there are no children from the second wife yet. The only son is already five years old.
Who does not risk ...
The MIA SUMMARY is replete with reports of the sale of newborns. Several such cases were recorded in October alone. The “cost” of the cherished dream of childless families, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ranges from 300 somoni to 5,000 dollars. Criminal cases are initiated against all detainees, but people, knowing the consequences, still commit such crimes.
According to statistics, in Tajikistan, almost 25% of married couples cannot conceive a child, and out of 100 thousand couples that are annually registered with the registry offices, more than 20 thousand are considered infertile.
Several dozen newborns and children are admitted to orphanages every year. preschool age... Every year, about 200 families are queuing up for adoption in Dushanbe alone. And only eight families manage to become parents. And what happens to the remaining 192 families who, for one reason or another, cannot take a child in a legal way? You have to take risks and commit a crime.
A good example is the story of the childless family of Daler and Maftuna, who could not adopt a child and went on an illegal path.
Once I met my old acquaintance, who, to put it mildly, is a woman of easy virtue, - says the unemployed Daler. - I talked about my misfortune, that through my own fault I have not been able to become a father for ten years. She volunteered to help. A few days later she called and said that a certain girl from the village had given birth to an illegitimate child and wanted to abandon him. We agreed to meet at the maternity hospital №3. When, in exchange for $ 200, I picked up the long-awaited package with a baby, I was in seventh heaven! I cried. Happy, together with my wife and child, we returned home. But a few hours later a district police officer came to us and ... took the baby. It turns out that someone “snitched” on us, they took me to the police, after long proceedings the case was “settled”, but the child was never returned to us.
Friends suggested that Dahler try to conceive a child under the in vitro fertilization (IVF) program, but the amount was too much for the family.
Recently, this childless family adopted a child whom a relative gave birth to especially for them. Moreover, she gave birth to twins, and one Daler and his wife took for themselves. Now Daler has an incentive to move on. He tries to find a permanent job to raise his son.
Legal adoption
BY LAW, consideration of documents required for adoption requires from 15 days to one month. After receiving the decision of the court and sending the commission on guardianship and trusteeship, the adoptive family can go to the orphanage and choose the child.
Why does the procedure for adopting a child take so long?
We addressed this question to the employees of one of the district guardianship and guardianship departments of Dushanbe. As one of them, who wished to remain anonymous, explained, they do not refuse any family that has decided to adopt or adopt a child.
The adoption procedure is time-consuming due to the fact that it is necessary to draw up a number of documents, wait for a court decision, and besides, the adoptive parents do not want to take the first child they come across, she says. - The movement of the queue of applicants also depends on the admission of children to infant homes and orphanages. None of the citizens who applied did not leave us dissatisfied. Although there are families on our list that have been waiting for a decision for years because they are not quite ready for this process or do not have the necessary conditions for the child's life, they are not able to provide good housing, food and clothing.
As one of the reasons for the long wait, the official cites a small number of "refuseniks" (according to statistics, in 2014 their number decreased by 37%), since not every day women renounce their children, and a large number of people who want to get babies, and not adult children.
In many ways, our mentality plays a role, ”she says. - Everyone wants to adopt a child in infancy, since such a child does not know about the "secret" of his birth, usually such families immediately change their place of residence so that no one would tell the child about his past. And with older children it is much more difficult, their character is already being formed, and few of our compatriots decide to take such a child into their family.
Another reason for the lengthy adoption procedure, according to the guardianship officials, lies in the judicial system. “In some cases, due to the large volume of work, the court considers the issue of adoption within three months, or even more,” they say.
At the same time, in the case of adoption, the state does not provide any benefits to adoptive parents, while other countries provide all kinds of support to such families, for example, in Russia, from 15 to 25 thousand rubles are paid monthly per child, when three or more children are adopted at the same time, payments increase.
There is a danger
“IT IS NECESSARY to think over and remove unnecessary bureaucratic barriers, and I am sure that there will be fewer cases of illegal trafficking in children. If we simplify the adoption procedure, then there will be fewer orphans, ”President Rahmon emphasized in his 2013 speech. Continuing the topic, the head of state expressed dissatisfaction with the activities of state structures in this direction. “What are our government agencies doing? Where are our scientists? I instruct: develop an appropriate document to simplify the adoption procedure, ”he said.
The adopted amendments to the country's legislation will exempt potential parents from paying state fees when the courts consider their applications for adoption or adoption. In addition, a unified republican register of orphans in the country will be created.
On the one hand, simplification of the adoption procedure will serve as a significant barrier to eradicate corruption in government agencies, since there are cases of extortion by employees of child rights commissions, guardianship authorities and courts.
But on the other hand, lawyers are already expressing concern that if the adoption procedure is simplified, there may be cases of using children for criminal purposes.
Each issue has its own legal nuances, ”says human rights activist Jumakhon Saliev. “For example, if we simplify the procedure, then dishonest people can take advantage of this, acting as“ pseudo ”foster parents, and thus defenseless orphans can be used for organs or exploited in child pornography, if not sold into sex slavery. Thus, there is a risk of illegal activities.
Meanwhile, our hero Tolib, about whom we wrote at the beginning, is thinking about a second adopted child.
I recently heard on the radio that adoption is being simplified, ”he says. - Maybe still try and take the second child? Not for the sake of living space, God bless her. After all, the son needs a sister. And she will become a housekeeper for us.
List of documents required for the adoption of a child:
1. Certificate from the tuberculosis dispensary.
2. Certificate from the narcological dispensary.
3. Certificate from a psychiatric dispensary.
4. Certificate from the venereal clinic.
5. Certificate from the polyclinic at the place of residence.
6. Certificate from the place of work about the position held and wages or a copy of the income tax return or other document on income.
7. Certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the absence of a criminal record.
8. Certificate of the place of residence indicating all family members.
9. A copy of the passport (with the provision of the original).
10. Certificate of marriage (original with copy).
11. Autobiography.
12. Description from the place of work or from the mahalla council.
13. Act on the state of housing conditions and the corresponding Conclusion of the Commission on the Rights of the Child at the place of residence.
14. Document confirming the right to use the dwelling or ownership of the dwelling.
15. Receipt of all family members on the consent of adoption in the family.
16. Application addressed to the deputy chairman of the city or region, the chairman of the commission on the rights of the child.
Dushanbe st. Borbad 72/3
Telephone:
(+992 37) 2313602
State:
68 employees
Place of residence of persons - users of social services:
The Republic of Tajikistan
Age of persons - users of social services:
from 3 to 7 years
The number of people who received social services in 2010:
Clients ratio (people) * Average time of rendering one service
*The number of clients (persons) to whom services are provided per one specialist of the organization
Categories of persons - users of social services:
- Children with disabilities
- Family members or close circle of the beneficiary
Services:
Social service form 2a - Long-term social service in stationary institutions (more than 3 months)
Types of social services:
- Social and medical rehabilitation / habilitation
- Socio-psychological assistance and counseling
- Social and household and hygienic services
- Assistance in the development of physical activity (physical and occupational therapy)
- Leisure and communication
- Education
In Tajikistan, more and more often, parents send their children to an orphanage because of the impossibility of supporting them. So, in the last 6 months alone, 80 mothers transferred their children to orphanages. Experts note that this behavior of Tajiks is a by-product of migration.
Most of the mothers who have given their children to the care of the state note that this measure is temporary, and as soon as they find shelter and funds to support their children, they will immediately take them back. For example, Dilafruz, a 26-year-old resident of Dushanbe, told the Tajik media that her children had been in an orphanage for four months. She notes that she went to extreme measures due to the lack of housing and funds to support the child. Her five-year-old son is in an orphanage for preschool children, and her three-year-old daughter is in orphanage # 1 in Dushanbe.
Dilafruz said that she divorced her husband a year ago and currently lives in a hostel with several women who trade in the market. She noted that her husband, who was in labor migration, sent her an SMS message in which he gave her a divorce.
- After he went to Russia, his attitude changed dramatically. He constantly swore, said that I did not respect his relatives, did not recognize his relatives. I was very surprised then, because I had no problems with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. My mother-in-law has always protected me. But then we learned that my husband received citizenship in Russia and had another wife. Despite this, my sister-in-law said that I should live at her house. But I couldn't stay there any longer, ”Dilafruz said.
A similar story happened with 33-year-old Shamigul Boronova, who also came to Dushanbe after she was given a divorce. She has four children - two of them were taken by her husband, and two left by his ex-wife. Shamigul, who lives in a hostel and earns pennies in one of the capital's markets, also plans to temporarily place her children in the care of the state.
- A person cannot stay all his life in his brother's house, near his wife. Now I have prepared all the documents for the children, in a few days I will hand them over to the khukumat of the city of Dushanbe. As soon as I find a place to live, I will take my daughter and son. I’ll give it to the kindergarten, and I’ll work myself, ”Shamigul says.
Sherali Rakhmatulloyev, head of the department for providing services to mothers, children and family management, notes that the government provides for all children who are sent to the orphanage. However, he added that there are no norms for the temporary adoption of women left without a roof over their heads in the legislation of Tajikistan.
- We have mothers who bring their children temporarily and then take them away. Some women are sentenced to imprisonment, so they bring their children. There are also fathers who live alone and leave their children behind for a while. But we do not have such a special concept as “homeless women,” says Rakhmatulloev.
It should be noted that 265 children are kept in baby homes in Tajikistan, 90 percent of whom are admitted on a temporary basis. Thus, the orphanage in Dushanbe alone admitted 30 children on a temporary basis in six months. However, at the moment, only two children have returned to the family.
Dilafruz, 26, from Dushanbe, says her baby has been temporarily in an orphanage for four months now. She is one of those single women who have no place to live. She has children, but she is not able to support them.
Dilafruz told Radio Ozodi that her son is five years old and is in an orphanage for children preschool age, and her three-year-old daughter is at Orphanage # 1 in Dushanbe.
Dilafruz divorced her husband a year ago and now lives in a hostel in the Giprozem quarter of Dushanbe, along with several women who trade in the market. Dilafruz has no specialty and studied in high school only up to grade 9.
She says her daughter was not yet born when her husband went to labor migration and a year ago gave her a divorce by sending an SMS message.
“After he went to Russia, his attitude changed dramatically. He constantly swore, under the pretext that I did not respect his family. I always said that you do not recognize my relatives, and it surprised me, because I had no problems with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. My mother-in-law has always protected me. But then we found out that the husband received citizenship in Russia and has another wife. But despite this, my sister-in-law said that I should live at her house. But I couldn't stay there any longer, ”- says the young woman.
Dilafruz's story is not much different from the fate of other women left on the street after a divorce. Dilafruz also returned to her parents' house in the Vahdat region after the divorce. But her family could hardly make ends meet and could not bear the burden of supporting a daughter and two grandchildren. She and her two children moved to the city in the hope of establishing her life here.
Thirty-three-year-old Shamigul Boronova also came to Dushanbe from the Abdurahmoni Jomi district after her family collapsed and now wants to send her two young children to an orphanage.
Shamigul has four children. After the divorce, her husband took two children, two other children remained with Shamigul. Now she and her two children live in a dormitory in a fellow villager's room in the 46th microdistrict of Dushanbe and work in a canteen at the Korvon market.
“A person cannot stay all his life in his brother’s house, near his wife. Now I have prepared all the documents for the children, in a few days I will hand them over to the khukumat of the city of Dushanbe. As soon as I find a place to live, I will take my daughter and son. I'll send it to the kindergarten, and I'll work myself. "- says Shamigul.
Zarina Kenjaeva, a psychologist at the Center for Confidence of the Committee on Women's Affairs, says that in Tajikistan, after divorcing their wives, most men do not provide their children with housing. Moreover, they want to punish women more severely.
“Women say that after a divorce, men, in order not to provide their children with housing, declare them illegitimate. They say they do not believe that the child was born of them and for this reason they are not given housing. A woman who has nowhere to go is forced to send her child to an orphanage. ”
The orphanages are under the patronage of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Sherali Rakhmatulloyev, head of the department for providing services to mothers, children and family ordering, told Radio Ozodi that the government provides children whose mothers are unable to support them with shelters. However, there are no norms for the temporary adoption of children of homeless women.
“We have mothers who bring their children in temporarily and then take them away. Some women are sentenced to imprisonment, so they bring their children. There are also fathers who live alone and leave their children behind for a while. But we do not have such a special concept as “homeless women”.
Four orphanages, two of which are in Dushanbe, and two in Sughd, contain 265 children, 90% of whom are admitted on a temporary basis. If in six months of 2014 65 single women sent their children to orphanages temporarily, then this year the number of such women has reached 80. Only the orphanage in Dushanbe received temporarily 30 children in six months. Of this number, only two women were able to improve their situation and take their children. 28 other children are waiting for their mothers to take them home.
Ganjinai Ganj
