Children's homes for orphans and boarding schools in Dushanbe. Adopted child

Twenty-six-year-old Dilafruz from Dushanbe says her child has been temporarily in an orphanage for four months. She is one of those single women who does not have a home. She has children, but she is not able to support them.

Dilafruz told Radio Ozodi that her son is five years old and is in an orphanage for preschool children, and her three-year-old daughter is in orphanage No. 1 in Dushanbe.

Dilafruz divorced her husband a year ago and now lives in a hostel in the Giprozem quarter of Dushanbe along with several women who trade in the market. Dilafruz does not have a specialty and studied in high school only until the 9th grade.

She says her daughter had not yet been born when her husband left for labor migration and a year ago gave her a divorce by sending an SMS message.

“After he went to Russia, his attitude changed dramatically. He constantly cursed, under the pretext that I did not respect his family. I always said, you don’t recognize my relatives, and this surprised me, because I didn’t have any problems with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. My mother-in-law always protected me. But then we found out that the husband received citizenship in Russia and has another wife. But despite this, my sister-in-law said that I should live at her house. But I couldn't stay there any longer,"- says the young woman.

Dilafruz's story is not very different from the fate of other women left on the street after divorce. After the divorce, Dilafruz also returned to her parents’ house in the Vakhdat region. But her family struggled to make ends meet and was unable to bear the burden of supporting their daughter and two grandchildren. She moved to the city with her two children in the hope of establishing her life here.

Thirty-three-year-old Shamigul Boronova also came to Dushanbe from the Abdurahmoni Jomi district after her family fell apart, and now wants to send her two young children to an orphanage.

Shamygul has four children. After the divorce, her husband took two children, the other two children remained with Shamygul. Now she and her two children live in a dorm in a fellow villager’s room in the 46th microdistrict of Dushanbe and work in a canteen at the Korvon market.

“A person cannot stay all his life in his brother’s house, near his wife. Now I have prepared all the documents for the children, in a few days I will submit them to the hukumat of the city of Dushanbe. As soon as I find housing, I will take my daughter and son. I’ll send it to kindergarten, and I’ll work myself”- says Shamigul.

Psychologist at the Trust Center for Women's Affairs Committee Zarina Kendzhaeva says that in Tajikistan, most men do not provide housing for their children after divorcing their wives. Moreover, they want to punish women more harshly.

“Women say that after a divorce, men, in order not to provide housing for their children, declare them illegitimate. They say they don’t believe that the child was born from them and for this reason they don’t give them housing. A woman who has nowhere to go is forced to send her child to an orphanage.”

Orphanages are under the patronage of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. The head of the department for the provision of services to mothers, children and family regulation, Sherali Rakhmatulloev, in an interview with Radio Ozodi, said that the government provides children whose mothers are not able to support them with shelters. However, there are no norms for the temporary adoption of children of homeless women.

“We have mothers who bring their children temporarily and then take them away. Some women are sentenced to imprisonment, so they bring their children. There are also fathers who live alone and leave their children for some time. But we do not have such a special concept as “homeless women”.

In four orphanages, two of which are Dushanbe, two in Sogd, 265 children are kept, 90% of whom are admitted on a temporary basis. If in six months of 2014, 65 single women sent their children temporarily to orphanages, then this year the number of such women has reached 80. The Dushanbe orphanage alone took in 30 children temporarily in six months. Of this number, only two women were able to improve their situation and take their children. 28 other children are waiting for their mothers to take them home.

Ganjinai Ganj

Dushanbe st. Borbad 72/3

Telephone:

(+992 37) 2313602

State:

68 employees

Place of residence of persons - users of social services:

The Republic of Tajikistan

Age of persons - users of social services:

from 3 to 7 years

Number of persons receiving social services in 2010:

Client standard (persons) *Average time to provide one service

*Number of clients (persons) to whom services are provided per one specialist of the organization

Categories of persons - users of social services:

• Children with disabilities
• Family members or close circle of the beneficiary

Services:

Form of social service 2a - Long-term social service in inpatient institutions (more than 3 months)

Types of social services:

• Social and medical re/habilitation
• Social and psychological assistance and counseling
• Welfare and hygiene services
• Assistance in the development of physical activity (physical and occupational therapy)
• Leisure and communication
• Education

Last week, the parliament of the republic approved amendments to the legislation of Tajikistan, according to which the procedure for adoption of orphans is simplified. About how the procedure is currently taking place, see the AP article.

The LOWER house of parliament supported the amendments proposed by the government of the republic to the laws “On State Duty”, “On State Registration of Acts of Civil Status”, as well as to the Family and Civil Procedure Codes of the Republic of Tajikistan, according to which the procedure for adoption of orphaned citizens of the country is simplified.

As the Minister of Education and Science of Tajikistan Nuriddin Said noted in his speech on this issue, today there are over 46.2 thousand orphans officially registered in the country, of which more than 2 thousand are orphans.

According to the minister, currently over 1.7 thousand citizens of Tajikistan are in line to adopt orphans. Over five years, about 4 thousand children have found families in the country.

The President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon made a proposal to simplify the adoption procedure in the country back in 2013, noting this in his message to the parliament of the republic. “Thousands of orphans are being raised in orphanages. Who is to blame for this? We, our bureaucracy. People have been unable to achieve adoption for years, and this leads to an increase in the illegal sale of children,” the president said then.

Long procedure

TOLIB and his wife lived for more than ten years, but they had no children. They eventually decided to adopt the child. The relatives flatly refused to take the child, citing the fact that the child would grow up and learn about his past. Therefore, they turned to the guardianship and trusteeship department of the Rudaki district hukumat - at their place of residence.

We were given a long list of documents that we had to prepare,” says Tolib, “a total of 16 items. After we collected all these documents, the guardianship authority of the Rudaki district sent us to the child rights department of the Dushanbe city council, where we were put on a waiting list for adoption. In total, we went through about ten instances, and together with waiting in line, this entire cycle took 2 years! Of course, during this time, 3-4 times we were offered to take out of turn a child with some kind of disability, for example with one short leg or strabismus, but I firmly wanted to take a healthy child and therefore refused. When it was our turn, we were informed that there was one refusenik, who was given birth to by a 19-year-old student. The child was in the capital's orphanage No. 1, and from time to time I went to visit him. I knew this child would be ours. To be sure, we even found the child’s biological mother and re-took her refusal receipt.

Finally, the day came when, according to a court decision, a married couple and their baby crossed their home threshold. According to Tolib, before this, the guardianship authorities came and checked the family’s living conditions. Although his wife was a housewife, she was engaged in sewing and this activity supplemented the family budget. Tolib himself works in law enforcement, so he makes good money.

Since the family lived with Tolib’s parents, after some time they decided to separate.

At that time, there was an order from the mayor of the city, according to which citizens who adopted two children would be provided with separate housing, says Tolib. - Therefore, we decided to resubmit the documents. Now for the adoption of some baby.

The bureaucratic mechanism began to spin again. We had to collect the documents again, although, to be honest, representatives of the authorities for the protection of children's rights should have brought up all the old documents of the married couple - and the procedure would have been simplified. While Tolib was running around the offices, his wife suddenly fell ill and fell ill. Their son was one year old when she died...

For the sake of the child, Tolib married a second time. But there are no children from his second wife yet. My only son is already five years old.

Who doesn't take risks...

The Ministry of Internal Affairs report is replete with reports of the sale of newborns. In the month of October alone, several such cases were recorded. The “cost” of the cherished dream of childless families, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, varies from 300 somoni to 5,000 dollars. Criminal cases are initiated against all detainees, but people, knowing about the consequences, still commit such crimes.

According to statistics, in Tajikistan, almost 25% of married couples cannot conceive a child, and out of 100 thousand couples that are annually registered in the registry office, more than 20 thousand are considered infertile.

Every year, several dozen newborns and preschool children are admitted to orphanages. Every year, about 200 families line up to adopt a child in Dushanbe alone. And only eight families manage to become parents. And what happens to the remaining 192 families who, for one reason or another, cannot adopt a child legally? You have to take risks and commit crimes.

A good example is the story of the childless family of Daler and Maftuna, who were unable to adopt a child and took the illegal route.

One day I met an old friend of mine, who, to put it mildly, is a woman of easy virtue,” says unemployed Daler. “I told about my misfortune, that through my own fault I have not been able to become a father for ten years now. She volunteered to help. A few days later she called and said that a certain girl from the village had given birth to an illegitimate child and wanted to give him up. We agreed to meet at maternity hospital No. 3. When, in exchange for 200 dollars, I picked up the long-awaited bundle with the baby, I was in seventh heaven! I cried. Happy, we returned home with my wife and child. But a few hours later a local police officer came to us and... took the baby away. It turns out that someone “snitched” on us, I was taken to the police, after long investigations the case was “settled”, but the child was never returned to us.

Friends suggested that Daler try to conceive a child using the in vitro fertilization (IVF) program, but the amount turned out to be unaffordable for the family.

This childless family recently adopted a child that a relative gave birth to especially for them. Moreover, she gave birth to twins, and Daler and his wife took one for themselves. Now Daler has an incentive to move on with his life. He is trying to find a permanent job to raise his son.

Legal adoption

BY LAW, reviewing the documents necessary for adoption requires from 15 days to one month. After receiving a court decision and sending a commission on guardianship and trusteeship, the adoptive family can go to the orphanage and choose a child.

Why does the procedure for adopting a child take so long?

We addressed this question to employees of one of the district departments for guardianship and trusteeship in Dushanbe. As one of them, who wished to remain anonymous, explained, they do not refuse a single family that has decided to adopt a child.

The adoption procedure takes a long time due to the fact that it is necessary to draw up a number of documents, wait for a court decision, and besides, adoptive parents do not want to take the first child they come across, she says. - The movement of the queue of applicants also depends on the admission of children to infant homes and orphanages. None of the citizens who contacted us left dissatisfied. Although there are families on our list who have been waiting for a decision for years, because they are not quite ready for this process or do not have the necessary conditions to support the child’s life - they are not able to provide good housing, food and clothing.

As one of the reasons for the long wait, the official names the small number of “refuseniks” (according to statistics, in 2014 their number decreased by 37%), since it is not every day that women renounce their children, and a large number of people want to receive babies rather than adult children.

Our mentality plays a role in many ways,” she says. - Everyone wants to adopt a child in infancy, since such a child does not know about the “secret” of his birth, usually such families immediately change their place of residence so that no one tells the child about his past. But with adult children it is much more difficult, their character is already being formed, and few of our compatriots decide to take such a child into the family.

Another reason for the length of the adoption procedure, according to guardianship officials, lies in the judicial system. “In some cases, due to the large volume of work, the court considers the issue of adoption within three months, or even more,” they say.

Moreover, in the case of adoption, the state does not provide any benefits to adoptive parents, while other countries provide all kinds of support to such families, for example, in Russia, from 15 to 25 thousand rubles are paid monthly per child; when adopting three or more children at the same time, payments increase.

There is danger

“We NEED to think through and remove unnecessary bureaucratic barriers, and I am sure that there will be fewer cases of illegal child trafficking. If we simplify the adoption procedure, then there will be fewer orphans,” the country’s President Emomali Rahmon emphasized in his speech in 2013. Continuing the topic, the head of state expressed dissatisfaction with the activities of government agencies in this direction. “What are our government agencies doing? Where are our scientists? “I instruct: develop an appropriate document to simplify the adoption procedure,” he said.

The adopted amendments to the country's legislation will exempt potential parents from paying state fees when courts consider their applications for adoption. In addition, a unified republican register of orphans in the country will be created.

On the one hand, simplifying the adoption procedure will serve as a significant barrier to eradicating corruption in government agencies, as there are cases of extortion by employees of the commissions for children’s rights, guardianship authorities and courts.

But on the other hand, lawyers are already expressing concern that if the adoption procedure is simplified, cases of children being used for criminal purposes may arise.

Each issue has its own legal nuances, says human rights activist Dzhumakhon Saliev. - For example, if we simplify the procedure, dishonest people can take advantage of this, acting as “pseudo” adoptive parents, and thus defenseless orphans can be used for organs or exploited in child pornography, if not sold into sex slavery. Thus, there is a danger of committing illegal actions.

Meanwhile, our hero Tolib, whom we wrote about at the beginning, is thinking about a second adopted child.

“I heard on the radio recently that the adoption procedure is being simplified,” he says. - Maybe we should still try and take a second child? Not for the sake of living space, God bless her. After all, the son needs a sister. And she will become a house help for us.

List of documents required for adoption of a child:

1. Certificate from the tuberculosis dispensary.

2. Certificate from a drug treatment clinic.

3. Certificate from a psychiatric clinic.

4. Certificate from a venereological clinic.

5. Certificate from the clinic at your place of residence.

6. Certificate from the employer about the position held and salary, or a copy of the income statement or other document on income.

7. Certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs confirming no criminal record.

8. Certificate of residence indicating all family members.

9. Copy of passport (with the original provided).

10. Marriage certificate (original with copy).

11. Autobiography.

12. Characteristics from the place of work or from the makhalla council.

13. Act on the state of living conditions and the corresponding Conclusion of the commission on the rights of the child at the place of residence.

14. A document confirming the right to use residential premises or ownership of residential premises.

15. Receipt of all family members agreeing to adoption in the family.

16. Application addressed to the deputy chairman of the city or district, chairman of the commission on children's rights.

We were contacted by spouses, citizens of the Russian Federation, who adopted a child in Moscow, whom the mother, a citizen of the Republic of Tatarstan, abandoned in the maternity hospital and gave consent to adoption. According to Russian legislation, if within six months a child born on the territory of the Russian Federation, whose parents are foreign citizens, is not awarded the citizenship of his parents, then this child receives Russian citizenship.

These spouses, without waiting for the expiration of these 6 months, adopted the child through the court. But the employees of the Tajikistan consulate, having learned about this, demanded that the adoption be canceled and took the child from the family, placing him in an orphanage in Moscow and then sending him to an orphanage in the Republic of Tajikistan. According to our data, this child is illegitimate and the family of the child’s mother has not expressed a desire to take the child into custody. Thus, this child will live and be raised in an orphanage. Although he could live in Moscow with parents who have an apartment, a country house, a stable income and for whom he would be the only child. Every time during a telephone conversation, the spouse (adoptive parent) cannot hold back her tears, calling the child “her only boy.”

The reason for this is Article 127 of the Family Code of the Republic of Tajikistan, according to which only citizens of the Republic of Tajikistan can be adoptive parents. In 2016, we have 46,200 children who live and are raised in orphanages and boarding schools. The birth rate of our population is quite high and over the years of independence the population of our country has increased by 60%. This is not counting the large outflow of Russian-speaking residents of the Republic of Tajikistan to other countries for permanent residence. We also have 31.5% of the poor population. A child raised in an orphanage is given a minimum pension of 156 somoni (about $20) monthly. Also, at present, upon reaching adulthood, the state cannot provide them with housing and work.

So why do we ban intercountry adoptions?

For comparison, if we take the birth rate in Russia, we see that in the Russian Federation over all the years of independence, only since 2013 there has been an increase in the birth rate of 22,700 people; before that, the mortality rate increased the birth rate. But at the same time, Russia allows international adoption. So, in accordance with the official data of the website of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the following were adopted by foreign citizens:

As we see, only in recent years the number of children adopted by foreigners has decreased, because... The state pursues a policy of supporting families and motherhood. Thus, the amount of maternity capital for the second and third child since 2015 in Russia is 453,023 rubles (7,440 US dollars). We pay 80 somoni (10.2 US dollars) for the second child and 40 somoni (5.1 US dollars) for the third child.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child states in article 21:

States Parties that recognize and/or permit the existence of an adoption system shall ensure that the best interests of the child are taken into account as a paramount consideration and they: in paragraph (b) “recognize that intercountry adoption may be considered as an alternative means of caring for a child if the child cannot be fostered or placed with a family that could provide care or adoption, and where it is not possible to provide any suitable care in the child's country of origin.”

In this case, our laws directly contradict this convention because they limit the right of children to foreign adoption. There is also another Hague Convention, “Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption,” which has been signed and ratified by 77 countries around the world, including our neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. These countries also allow international adoptions for the benefit of children. So in Kazakhstan in 2014, 101 children were adopted by foreigners.

Opponents of foreign adoption insist that in foreign countries we will not be able to ensure that children's rights are properly respected and they may be subject to violence from adoptive parents. So, according to statistics, over 15 years (from 1993 to 2006) in Russia, 80,000 children were adopted by foreigners, of whom 5 died and 16 became victims of accidents. This statistic shows that the percentage of 21 out of 80,000 is 0.026. Isolated cases of children being mistreated or returned for political purposes have been reported through the media to prevent Russian children from being adopted by US citizens.

Should we keep children in our orphanages, prohibiting foreign adoption, when, say, the same Russian family would want to adopt a child? Of course, preference for the adoption of children should undoubtedly be given to Tajik families, but as mentioned above, many residents of our country are below the poverty line and do not have sufficient funds and conditions for the adoption of children. Also, few people want to adopt disabled children. But again, according to statistics, over the last 2 years in Russia, 153 disabled children were adopted by foreigners.

We hope that soon our legislators will make appropriate changes to the legislation to allow foreign adoption in the interests of children of citizens of Tajikistan within the framework of international conventions and norms.

Sources:

1. Asia Plus: Demographic anomalies of Tajikistan, What can an orphan in Tajikistan count on?;
2. Website of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation;
3. Website of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan;
4. Wikipedia;
5. Convention on the Protection of the Rights of the Child.