The legal provisions on adoption, the impediments faced during the adoption process and the current situation in the field were among the subjects discussed in a press club meeting staged by the Alliance of active NGOs in Social Protection of Child and Family with support from UNICEF, IPN reports.

Both the representatives of the authorities and the adoptive parents attending the meeting said the procedure is relatively functional. “The procedure is not at all long. In some cases the period of matching the couple to the adoptable child needs to be extended,” said Oxana Costandaki, an adoptive mother and psychologist at Keystone Moldova.

The Alliance’s president Mariana Yanakevich said the judicial system now faces problems in the adoption process as in Moldova there are no courts of law specialized in adoption. She called on the journalists to treat adoption in a positive way.

Corneliu Tarus, deputy division head at the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, spoke about the reasons why the adoptive persons or couples do not openly speak about their own adoptive experience. “Regretfully, the families that adopt a child in Moldova are not understood in society, with the journalists playing an important role in this regard. In the developed countries, the relatives, friends and society encourage and appreciate the couples that adopt,” he stated.

According to official data, the State Register of Adoptions now includes 225 national adopters and 40 international adopters. As many as 472 children were adopted.