December 12, 2007

Dear Members of the American Adoption Community Interested in Ukraine:

On November 22, 2007 the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports issued Decree #4137. This Decree approves the numbers of the new adoption dossiers from foreign countries that can be accepted by the Ukrainian State Department for Adoption and Protection of the Rights of the Child (SDAPRC) during calendar year 2008.

The result of the decree is that 460 dossier submissions have been allocated to parents from the U.S. for calendar year 2008. This number was arrived at using a special mathematical formula devised by the SDAPRC, based on the number of delinquent post adoption reports and the number of Ukrainian children who will be eligible for intercountry adoption in 2008. The total number of the dossier submissions is divided among five categories of children, so a specific number of dossiers can be submitted for each category:

• children under six years old (with no siblings) - 32 dossiers
• children from six to nine years old (with no siblings) - 83 dossiers
• children ten years or older (with no siblings) - 115 dossiers
• sibling groups (in which one of the children is younger than 6 years) - 92 dossiers
• sibling groups (in which all siblings are 6 or more years old) - 138 dossiers

The U.S. again has the highest number of allocations for foreign countries adopting from Ukraine, followed by Italy (381 dossiers) and Spain (285 dossiers).

The dossiers for the following categories of children will be accepted without any limitations and out of the regular line:

• Children who have been abandoned abroad or are currently residing abroad under the legal custody of their relatives (children who are not physically present in Ukraine)
• step-children
• handicapped children, who suffer from a disease listed with the Ministry of Public Health Protection (the list of these diseases is posted at: http://www.moz.gov.ua/ua/main/docs/?docID=7269.

The SDAPRC will accept the new dossiers from foreign citizens beginning February 4, 2008.