A Baby for $22,920
from Echo
BAKU, Azerbaijan--“February 10, 2003. Last month we returned from Azerbaijan with two beautiful babies: Daniel, 21 months; and Elisa, 19 months. They are healthy and happy! You will love your trip to Baku. Nice people will take care of you there …” This letter, written by Chris Soller to all Americans willing to adopt children from Azerbaijan, is posted on the website of Families Thru International Adoption (FTIA), an organization that has been frequently mentioned by Echo as an agency working in the field of international adoption. For American married couples, adopting a child from Azerbaijan costs $22,920.
The U.S.-based FTIA charges a certain fee for its adoption services. Prospective parents are allowed to choose from six countries in which they can find and adopt a child with the help of this organization, which fulfills the role of mediator. Along with Brazil, China, Russia, Guatemala, Vietnam, and India, Azerbaijan is also on the list. The adoption procedure is conducted according to the laws of the child’s country of birth. As Echo has discovered from the correspondence of prospective parents of Azeri orphans, at least two more American families are to receive adoption approval in Azerbaijan in late April or early May 2003…
At least five families have either already adopted Azeri children this year or will do so in the near future, all of them through FTIA. There are several similar organizations working in this field in the United States, one of which is Building Blocks Adoption Service Inc. (BBASI). (Azerbaijan was included in the list of countries where BBASI is implementing a POSRED mission in August 2002.)
On the FTIA website, married couples share their experiences of applying to this organization for help with adoption. They make recommendations based on their own experience and also describe how long they must wait before their “dreams come true.” For example, Amy from Paris, Illinois, writes that she has completed preparing all the adoption-related paperwork. She has also taken a home course in childcare and the only thing she still needs is to receive confirmation of her application and a stamp of approval from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (recently renamed the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services).
Those couples who have completed all the documentation for legal registration encourage those still awaiting a response to their applications or those waiting their turn to go to Azerbaijan. Normally these couples have to wait several months…. The website provides information on the costs of adopting a child in Azerbaijan, with a breakdown of the costs for each stage of the process. The total cost for families willing to adopt a child from Azerbaijan comes to $22,920, including $11,110 listed under the heading “international fees.” This means this sum is required just for expenses in Azerbaijan (excluding traveling and living expenses). This money, the website explains, goes toward dossier translation and notarization; translation of post-placement reports and notarization in Azerbaijan; an orphanage donation; visa processing fees, and a medical report. Echo contacted the translation company Nettverk, which cited a fee of $7 to translate a page from English to Azeri. “But the fees of other translation agencies can vary,” said a company representative.
Travel costs and living expenses in Azerbaijan are listed separately. The first visit by a U.S. couple to Azerbaijan lasts seven days and costs $2,500, including travel expenses. The second visit lasts 10 days and costs $3,510. These costs aren’t included in the $11,110 of expenses… The organization has established contacts with Azeri government institutions, such as the education, health, and external affairs ministries and so on. They also send all information regarding potential parents to the Azeri Embassy in the United States.
[However], the relevant Azeri institutions are not aware of FTIA’s intermediary role. At the same time, the Azeri Justice Ministry informed Echo’s reporters that an organization called FTIA was registered in Baku in 2000. They even provided the reporters with the company’s street address in Baku so that Echo reporters could visit the office. That address appeared to belong to a residential apartment where residents had never heard of a U.S. organization dealing with adoption. When asked why the street address of FTIA’s Baku office was incorrect, Fazil Mamedov, the head of the Azeri Justice Ministry’s registration department, suggested the company could have moved to a different location. When asked why FTIA didn’t inform the ministry about its new address, Mamedov [said]: “Do you inform this ministry each time you change location?”
Several months earlier, when it first learned of FTIA’s activities, Echo contacted the deputy director of the Baku Health Administration, Farida Kasimova, who stated that according to the relevant presidential decree and according to the law on families, foreign citizens have a legal right to adopt children in Azerbaijan. The only difference is that for foreigners the process takes much longer than for Azeri citizens. As Kasimova pointed out, children can be adopted if abandoned by their parents three times. The idea to legalize the adoption of Azeri children by foreign citizens came into being because children frequently don’t get adopted here. It was legalized in 2000 when government decree No. 172--the document regulating the adoption process--came into force.
The procedure begins when a foreign couple sends a request to the Azeri consulate in their home country and submits all the necessary documents, including medical reports and proof of the family’s financial security. After the documents are legalized, the couple must wait their turn in order to continue the process. Meanwhile, their documents are sent to Baku, and the next stage of their application is reviewed by different divisions of the Health Ministry. Depending on a child’s age group, as listed in the application, different divisions are employed to review the applications. One of the main links in this chain is the district court that rules on the adoption application. If the district court and the local mayor’s office have no objections, the case goes to the Cabinet Board, which is responsible for making the final decision. If an application is approved, the happy family can go ahead and pick a child. The whole procedure takes about six to eight months.
As for the role of intermediary, according to Azeri law this can only be played by the couple’s authorized delegate. Kasimova pointed out that neither FTIA nor any other organization can take this role upon itself. “Give me the name of the family’s authorized delegate or representative, and I will provide all the information available. Here in Azerbaijan we have heard nothing about FTIA,” she was quoted as saying. She also noted that according to Azeri law, all legal procedures connected to adoption cases are totally free of charge. She also mentioned that the relevant agencies and people involved in the process usually try to offer up children who need serious medical assistance for adoption by foreign families. Such children have much less chance of being adopted in their own country.
After adoption takes place, the government institutions of the adopted parent’s home country take over monitoring the child’s future. Foster parents must send annual health reports and pictures of the child to the Azeri government’s adoption committee. Kasimova couldn’t tell Echo how many children have been adopted by foreigners, as she said this information was confidential. At the same time, Foreign Ministry representatives said they were unaware of the existence of any organization working on international adoption issues in Azerbaijan.
It was not possible to receive any information on the issue from the Education Ministry. But despite the fact that Azeri government institutions directly involved in adoption proceedings possess no information about FTIA, or any other organization in the same line of business here, this year two Azeri children have gone to the United States. And there are more couples who will take babies out of Azerbaijan.
[…]FTIA representative Sergey Donchenko, residing in the United States, told Echo that his organization has undergone all the required registration stages--the cabinet, and the justice, education, health, and foreign ministries. Donchenko also stated that the legal basis of international adoption is regulated bilaterally--by both the U.S. and Azeri sides. “Kasimova must be aware of our organization’s activities, since she was present at an event arranged at the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan with the participation of FTIA representatives,” he said…
One of the main questions that remains unanswered is why the adoption of Azeri children by U.S. citizens should involve huge expenses totaling $22,920, with $11,110 spent in Azerbaijan itself. The chair of the Children’s Rights Defense League, Yusif Bekirov, said that Azeri law presumes the adoption procedure will be totally free and charged, “This phenomenon could only be explained by corruption among the officials dealing with adoption issues.” He is particularly outraged by the orphanage donations, which are supposed to be an act of free will, but in Azerbaijan they are deemed a mandatory procedure in order to be able to proceed with an adoption application.
--by N. Aliyev, S Mustafayeva. Translated by Natella Isazadeh
The news items posted on TOL Wire have been edited by TOL staff with only minor changes to the original content. Larger additions are marked as follows: [TOL editor's note].
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