Kyrgyz to Join International Adoption Pact

Kyrgyzstan is moving towards ratification of the Hague Adoption Convention, which establishes safeguards to prevent human trafficking and ensure that all adoptions are in the best interests of the child.

“I think it’s essential for us to ratify the Hague convention,” Altynay Omurbekova, deputy head of the parliamentary committee for health and social policy, told IWPR.

Since Kyrgyzstan recently lifted a moratorium on international adoptions, joining the international convention “will intensify the scrutiny over what happens to children adopted from Kyrgyzstan… and international adoptions will only take place to [other] countries that have ratified it”, Omurbekova said. “It will then take a few more years – experts say about two years – to bring national legislation into line with the requirements of the convention.”

There are currently 60 children on the waiting list for adoption abroad. Over half of them need operations.

The audio programme, in Russian and Kyrgyz, went out on national radio stations in Kyrgyzstan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.