TEHRAN – Child adoption has surged by 2.5 times compared to ten years ago, as around 2,500 children are adopted annually.

Currently, there are 635 childcare centers, of which 33 are nurseries. Five thousand people work in these centers and nine thousand children are benefiting from services in these centers, IRNA quoted Hamid-Reza Alvand, an official with Welfare Organization, as saying.

The Welfare Organization is planning to empower the children by training them to respect social values, and learn social skills, strengthening their faith, and helping them to be independent, the official added.

For adoption, criteria like mental health, the ability to take care of a child, no addiction, no criminal record, and bad reputation, as well as proper income must be achieved. The approach is the result of studying the adoption process in 10 countries around the world.

According to the Welfare Organization, the country’s adoption and foster laws 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 permitted 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.

MT/MG