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The problems of the adoption system in Armenia are in the centre of attention of the legislative and executive bodies, as well as all competent bodies: the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Labour and Social Affairs Heriknaz Tigranyan said during the working debate of the abovementioned issue at the Committee led by her on December 2.

As the NA deputy assured, the main goal of the Work Group on Adoption formed by the N 1197-A decision of the RA Prime Minister of August 26, 2019 is to carry out fact-finding activity, to map the

problems and present legislative proposals for the improvement of the sphere.

“The goal was also to disclose the problems of not only legislative and law in practice, but also possible corruption risks and non-credible adoption cases,” Heriknaz Tigranyan noted.

The RA Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Tatevik Stepanyan presented the activity of the Working Group and touched upon the problems of the sphere. According to the Deputy Minister, the problems are conditioned by the interconnected unscrupulous work in the adoption system.

In 2015-2020, 53.000 cases of recognition of fatherhood were analyzed. Until 2020, the international adoptions prevailed in our country. In 2018, 49 children were adopted by the foreigners. In 2019, 69 children were registered. In 2020, 32 inner-state adoptions and one foreign one were carried out, in 2021, 18 inner-state and 5 foreign adoptions were carried out. As the Deputy Minister assured, in the adoption process of our children by the foreigners there is tendency of reduction. Tatevik Stepanyan noted that the adopters are mainly citizens of the USA, Italy and France.

Regarding the legislative reforms, the Deputy Minister highlighted the reform of the family legislation. The draft law on The System of Children’s Rights and Protection is at the stage of elaboration.

The Deputy Chairman of the RA Investigative Committee Arsen Ayvazyan presented brief information on the filed criminal cases. “We should do our best for solving the problems through legislative way,” the Deputy Chairman of the Investigative Committee said.

Arsen Ayvazyan stressed the necessity of prevention of all possible speculations.

The NA deputies, representatives of the Ministries of Justice, Health, Foreign Affairs, Police, the Prosecutor’s Office and other concerned structures took part in the debate of the issue and presented observations.