OVER 2500 BULGARIAN CHILDREN WAITING FOR ADOPTION

As of October 31 2007, 2 557 Bulgarian children were registered as waiting for adoption.
Over the period of 22 months before end of October 2007, their number had grown by almost 25 per cent.

On January 1 2005, 2 058 Bulgarian children were registered as waiting for adoption, by October 31 2007, there were 2 557. These figures were provided on December 11 by Krasimira Natan, chairman of the Friends of the Children organisation in Bulgaria, at a discussion on international adoption, BTA said.

International adoption was provided for 108 Bulgarian children in 2005, 103 in 2006 and for 51 over the first 10 months of 2007, Natan said.

Focus of the discussion was the increase of children left in care homes and the lengthening of the period they remained there. At the same time, adoption was not as widespread as was hoped. Changes in the law were required in order to protect the interests of the children and of the adoptive parents during international adoption, participants in the discussion said.

Changes to the family codex were foreseen, which would mean that children would to be automatically eligible for adoption if their parents did not come and look for them within six months after the children had entered care homes, Bulgarian news agency BTA said.

Other proposals made during the discussion included separate registers for children, according to their age and health, and preferential treatment and simpler adoption procedures for children with special needs.