Ukraine - The Country
Ukraine, located in southeastern Europe, covers 233,089 square miles and is slightly smaller than Texas. Forests cover some 13% of the territory in the northern regions and large plains with fertile soil dominate southern Ukraine. Ukraine has cold winters and cool summers. Ukraine has a long and interesting history, which dates back to 1500 B.C. The population is comprised of ethnic Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, Jews, Tatars, Poles, Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, and Greeks. Ukraine is a parliamentary democracy led by a strong executive president.
Why Choose to Adopt in Ukraine?
Thousands of children are available for immediate adoption in Ukraine. These children need families. Alcoholism is not as prevalent as in Russia. During your trip to Ukraine, you will be referred a child, and travel to meet and interact with the child, before you accept the referral.
Who Can Adopt From Ukraine?
Individuals and couples may adopt from Ukraine. Couples must be married at least 1 year. Divorce is acceptable. Other children in the family are acceptable. There are no age restrictions for adoptive parents, other than they must be no older than 40 to 45 years older than the child although this is often flexible.
Children Available
Healthy children over 18 months are available, however only %% of the available children are under the age of 6. Younger children with various medical conditions, some of them easily correctable, are also available. All children must be registered with the Regional Data Bank and a National Data Bank. The children are generally Caucasian in appearance. The children are of good general health yet have some developmental delays due to the orphanage setting. Pre-travel photographs, videos, and medical information on the children are not available due to the laws of Ukraine. You will receive detailed medical and social information when you meet with the adoption authority in Kiev. We work in different orphanages including the Kiev region, Crimea, and in Western Ukraine.
Ukraine Adoption Process
- Apply to Hands Across The Water for services.
- Complete your Home Study with Hands Across The Water or an appropriate agency in your state. Please contact HATW for assistance if you live outside of Michigan.
- File your I-800A with the U.S. BCIS (INS).
- Prepare your dossier for Ukraine. HATW can do this for you or you can take this on yourself.
- Hands Across The Water will forward your completed dossier to be translated. Once translated it will be submitted to the SDA to be registered and approved. Once approved, you will be given an appointment to travel. Approval takes 3 to 6 months and the appointment will be several weeks after that.
- At the appointment time you will travel to Ukraine to register with the SDA and receive information on an available child(ren). You will then travel to the orphanages to meet the child(ren) and begin the process.
- When all the Ukrainian paperwork is complete, you will obtain your child's visa from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev. Your stay in Ukraine will be approximately 5-6 weeks. You have the option of making two trips of 10-14 days with two weeks in between. This is a very valuable time to learn about the country, people and culture of your child's birth.
Post-Placement Supervision
Your child's adoption is finalized in Ukraine, but Ukraine requires post-placement reports and photos of your child over a period of time. A minimum of 3 reports are required. Parent reports are needed on a yearly basis for up to 18 years. You will also need to register your child with the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. when you come home with your child.
The photos on these pages are of children already placed and are not available for adoption. HATW does not photolist children waiting for adoption via the internet.
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