TEHRAN — Iran’s Welfare Organization has set up a child adoption website, the organization director Anoushirvan Mohseni-Bandpey said on Sunday.

Parents who are interested in adopting a child can refer to the website www.behzistitehran.org.ir and sign up for adoption. 

“The scheme is being piloted in Tehran and will be soon carried out nationwide,” Mohseni-Bandpey said, adding, the website would ease the time-consuming process.

Families with no children, families with one child, and single women are allowed to apply for adoption through the website, he added.

The whole process would take up to three months, he said. 

Iran’s adoption and foster laws which dated back to some 44 years ago were revised and modified in 2013. 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. In addition to families with no child now families with one kid and single women are able to apply for adoption.

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. 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.

MQ/MG