TEHRAN — The State Welfare Organization of Iran has facilitated the process for prospective foster or adoptive families, an official with the organization announced.

The adoption and foster laws which dated back to some 44 years ago were revised and modified in 2013 and are going to be implemented in the near future, Habibollah Masoudi-Farid said, Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.

Within the new law kids could be adopted up to the age of 16 while the former law states that kids aged 12 or less could be adopted, Masoudi-Farid noted.

The old law differs from the newly adopted law in that only families with no child could adopt a kid previously but now families with one kid and single women are able to apply for adoption, he added.

The official went on to explain that “the law formerly authorized adoption only for orphans while the new law permit adoption for children with dysfunctional families as well in case the judge concludes that the new family is suitable for adoption.”

He further pointed that earlier the adoptive families were required to sign over one third of their property to their child to-be but some could not afford to do so and now the judge gets to decide how a family, depending on their financial status, should be treated.

Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution some 12,000 kids were being taken care of in the orphanages and other centers of the kind but now the number have diminished to 9,800 as the new laws have facilitated adoption and also allow foster care which was not practiced in Iran beforehand, he stated.

According to the law, Masoudi-Farid said, it takes two months for families who apply for adoption to get approved to adopt or foster.

It is interesting to know that a great deal of families ask for adopting a girl, he said.

MQ/MG