News From MOJ

The Bulgarian Ministry of Justice released a great deal of information on its website recently which I would like to try to share here.  Please keep in mind that I am not a professional translator and interpret the material with the help of Google Translate as well as the language skills I have retained from studying Russian for ten years.

First, MOJ posted a list of active dossiers registered between March 13, 2007 and June 30, 2011.  By my count, according to this list, there are still 534 families waiting for referrals from that period.  The list does not include cases from that time frame that have received a referral and are in process of bringing the child home or cases that received a referral and declined.  It also does not include dossiers that have not been kept current at this point.  Almost 60% of these active dossiers request children 4 years of age or younger.

Secondly, MOJ released the number of international adoptions completed in Bulgaria in 2012.  There were 326 total adoption cases for 395 children.  124 of these cases were for 158 identified waiting children.  Families from the United States completed the most number of adoptions, bringing home 124 children, 86 of them waiting children.  You can see the pie chart of how other countries fared here: Справка по държави за брой преписки с дадено съгласие за международно осиновяване от министъра на правосъдието за 2012 година.

Lastly, MOJ released a list of the children that were adopted in 2012 (I believe these are cases that received the second MOJ approval last year).  The list shows the age, gender, and health characteristics of the children along with the date the parents' dossiers were registered.  The list profiles 395 children in total.  I have taken some statistics from the list to share here:

1) In 2012, there were 70 children up to age 4 with medical and/or developmental needs and/or family histories referred through the main procedure (not waiting children).  Needs among these children included problems with vision (including strabismus, nystagmus, hyperopia), congenital syphilis, anemia, allergies, hydrophrenosis, undescended testicles, low birth weight/prematurity, delayed physical development, congenital anomalies of the face, asthma, reflux disease, behavioral problems, heart defects, epilepsy, limb differences, missing limbs, thalassemia, scoliosis, Hepatitis B, Down Syndrome, cleft lip/palate, hearing problems, delays in motor and speech development as well as family histories of mental retardation/deficiencies, schizophrenia, paranoia, and problems reading/spelling.

2) There were 29 healthy children up to age 4 referred through the main procedure.  I use the term healthy here to describe what MOJ's standard of that word is.  Some of these healthy children still had family histories of mental retardation, schizophrenia, etc.  Some of these healthy younger children were referred as a group with their older siblings.  Almost all of these referrals went to families registered in 2008 or the first half of 2009, indicating that the wait for a healthy Bulgarian child under 4 is now anywhere from 36 to 48 months.

3) About one quarter of all referrals were for identified children with special needs (waiting children), another quarter for children up to age 4 through the main procedure.

4) By MOJ's standards, there were 74 referrals for completely healthy children ages 5 and up.

I hope this information is helpful to those considering adoption from Bulgaria or in process of setting or updating gender, age, and health parameters for a Bulgarian child.