80% of Moldovan children proposed for international adoption are disabled

80% of the children proposed for adoption in the Republic of Moldova are disabled, while the other 20% are groups of siblings. But the adoptive families want children of an early age without health problems, Info-Prim Neo reports. Minister of Labor, Social Protection and Family Valentina Buliga said that 28 applications for international adoptions have been filed this year. Eight families want children aged between 0 and 3 and without health problems. Another eight families agree to take pairs of siblings, but healthy. The other families want to adopt healthy children younger than 10. The Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family drafted a bill that is aimed at improving the adoption procedure. The adoptable children will be divided into children with special needs and without special needs. The children with special needs are those with disabilities who are older than 7 or have a brother or sister older than 7. The term within which a child with special needs is in the care of the state will be reduced. Valentina Buliga said that the older children are adopted with difficulty. At the same time, some of the diseases that can be treated when the child is in the family become more complicated. Under the legislation, the children older than 10 can decide by themselves whether to join a certain family or not. The families cannot impose strict conditions like: three-year-old girl with blue eyes and curly hair. The MPs of the legal commission that discussed the bill inquired why the foreign families would want to adopt children with special needs. Representatives of the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family said that in the U.S. for example, a family looking after a child with disabilities benefits from concessions and different support. If a foreign family wants to adopt a child in Moldova, it can file an application only through an organization working in their country that has a representative office in Moldova. The Ministry accredited 25 such organizations. The child that is adopted by a foreign family is monitored for 5 years. The bill was approved by the legal commission for appointments and immunities and will be submitted to Parliament for adoption.