Kazakhstan

The Program

There is no such thing as a “referral” or “pre-identification” in Kazakhstan. Even though the prospective adoptive parents may wish to adopt a particular child, the Government of Kazakhstan does not match a child to the parents or in any way “assign” them a child until they arrive in Kazakhstan, select a child in person, and apply to the court to adopt the child. Information about medical histories of the children and other pertinent information will be available during selection of the children.

Parent Eligibility

Kazakhstan allows both single and married people to adopt, and there are no age requirements other than that an unmarried prospective adoptive parent must be at least 16 years older than the child s/he intends to adopt. In practice, however, some adoptive parents over age 60 have found it difficult to adopt.

Available Children

Healthy children from the age of 9 months and up are available from Kazakhstan. They are mostly Asian, with a smaller percentage of Caucasian children available, too. The children are quite healthy and robust, unless, of course, you choose to identify and adopt a special need child.

Adoption Process

When your dossier is ready, it will be translated and sent to the proper Kazakhstan authorities to register you as prospective parents. Once we have the Letter of Invitation for you from Kazakhstan authorities we can schedule your trip. After meeting a child personally, you will have to spend 2 weeks with a child, and after that you will sign all required papers and a coordinator will file this paperwork to court. After the court hearing, you can leave the country and wait on the court decision to be in force while a representative gets all paperwork ready for the child including exit visa.

Travel

Both parents must travel to Kazakhstan. Two trips are required. The paperwork for the first trip can be done in three months. Parents will then get an invitation to travel. First trip is 3 to 4 weeks long depending on the region. The second trip is one month after the first trip and usually 4-7 days long depending on region. If the child you adopt is of school age, we can eliminate the second trip by having child escorted by our representative.