Child adoption in the Republic of Moldova is permitted only to persons who have full competence, reached 25 and are by at least 18 years older than the one who they intend to adopt, but by not more than 48 years older.

In a response to IPN, the Division of Policies for the Protection of the Rights of Children and Families with Children of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection said the adopters should satisfy moral guarantees and material conditions for ensuring the multilateral and harmonious development of the child’s personality. The adoption of a child by spouses is allowed only if the marriage has lasted for at least three years by the moment an application for adoption is submitted.

Child adoption bans

Under the legal provisions, the persons deprived of parental rights and those who avoid fulfilling the parental obligations, including the payment of child support to biological children, cannot adopt children in Moldova, as do those whose state of health does not enable then to appropriately fulfill their obligations and responsibilities concerning the raising and education of children, those who earlier adopted children, but didn’t appropriately fulfill their parental obligations and were deprived of parental rights or they weren’t deprived of parental rights, but the child was taken away from them by court decision, and also those who presented false information or documents as tutors for the adoption to be accepted or who were convicted of intentional offenses.

No taxes in national adoption procedure

The national adoption procedure in Moldova does not involve taxes. In the case of international adoption, when the application for international adoption is submitted, the adopter, in person or through the agency of the representative of the foreign organization with powers in international adoption in Moldova, pays a one-off sum of 3,000 lei. The tax represents the equivalent value of the occasional costs of services related to the international adoption procedure on Moldova’s territory provided by the Ministry.

Regardless of the number of children who can be adopted, the tax for international adoption procedures is the same. The money collected as such taxes is used to cover administrative costs and can be also transferred to boarding schools or homes for children with mental disabilities managed by the Ministry for buying bed linen, lingerie, clothing, footwear and hygienic products.

A child becomes adoptable when attempts to integrate him into biological or extended family fail

A child can be considered adoptable after all the measures for reintegrating this into the biological or extended family are taken during six months and these are unsuccessful. The local authority from the child’s domicile issues a decision to set the status of adoptable child.

The child who remained without parental care because of abandonment, disappearance of parents, mental state of parents, avoidance to fulfill the duties to educate the child and to defend the child’s legitimate rights and interests is classed as adoptable as a result of a final court decision on the deprivation of parental rights and institution of tutelage. A found child whose parents are not known becomes adoptable when all the possible investigations to identity the parents are carried out during six months.

Biological parents cannot take part in adoption process

The local authority informs the biological parents, including the parents deprived of parental rights, the tutor and the social institution or family type children’s home where the child is placed about the decision to class the child as adoptable. The biological parents do not take part in the adoption process. The parent has the right to take the necessary measures to reintegrate the child into the family. If the procedure for restoring the parental rights is initiated, the adoption procedure is suspended until the related problems are solved.

As many as 547 children were adopted in Moldova during the last five years and in the first half of 2020. The largest number of children were adopted in 2017 - 123, while the lowest number in 2019 – 87.

Sabina Rebeja, IPN