TEHRAN – Iranian charities abroad supported 13,000 needy orphans in various provinces during the first six months of the current [Iranian calendar] year (March 21- September 22, 2021), according to the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation.

Also, during this period, 550 new sponsors living abroad provided assistance to orphans across the country.

Currently, 3,000 philanthropists living abroad are cooperating with the relief committee and providing financial assistance to needy families and orphans inside the country.

The Foundation currently covers 147,000 orphaned children and 260,000 children with families who cannot afford to bring them up on their own.

In May 2020, Seyyed Morteza Bakhtiari, head of Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, said there were 710,265 active philanthropists in the country who support orphans.

Iranian benefactors have made cash contributions amounting to 15 trillion rials (about $54.5 million) to orphaned children over the last [Iranian calendar] year (March 2020 – March 2021), an increase of 71 percent year on year.

Adoption for orphans

There is a basic slogan in the country that children must grow in the family so that the priority is to foster the orphans.

Since [the Iranian calendar year] 1392, the number of adoption cases has increased and 2,000 children are placed for adoption annually, some of whom are placed under temporary custody because a temporary trustee is better than care centers, Masoudi-Farid said in May 2020.

Montazer Shabar, the Welfare Organization’s director for children affairs, said in July 2019 that there are 10 applicants for fostering each child in the country.

Currently, some 2,800 applicants are waiting for adoption, most of whom are parents not having children or intending to foster a child, he added.

According to the Welfare Organization, the country's adoption and foster laws that 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.

Previously, 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.

FB/MG