In order to practically ensure the lawful rights and interests of adopted Chinese children, foreign adoption organizations in cooperation with CCAA should meet with the following basic requirements.
I. They shall put the interests of adopted Chinese children in the first and foremost place.
They must honor the basic principles of the Convention on the Rights of Children and the Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption, fully recognize the fact that children should be in a family environment full of happiness, love and understanding, and choose optimal families in the best interests of adopted Chinese children.
Ⅱ. They must abide by the related laws and regulations of China and the regulations and requirements of CCAA.
They must abide by the Adoption Law of the People's Republic of China, the Measure for Registration of Adoption of Children by Foreigners in the People's Republic of China and other related laws and regulations; they must observe the regulations of competent governmental departments, and the regulations and requirements of CCAA and offer active cooperation with CCAA.
Ⅲ. They must be adoption organizations entrusted by their governments.
They have the Power of Attorney authorized by their governmental departments for adopting children in china. The Power of Attorney must be within its valid time limit. The American adoption agencies must currently and provisionally possess an effective license approved for inter-country adoption by the governmental department.
Ⅳ. They must be non-profit organizations.
They must be non-profit charity organizations approved by their governments. They should require reasonable payments and have no improper financial and other gains associated with inter-country adoption. Adoption organizations in the United States must be non-profit organizations with the legal status of 501 (C) 3 as approved by the American Internal Revenue Service.
Ⅴ. They must have experiences with a certain scale for international adoptions.
They must have experience of international adoption services; and they must be capable of handling over ten (ten inclusive) adoption cases from China for each year; they must have other children and family service programs other than adoption.
Ⅵ. They must be able to provide a complete range of international adoption services.
The services mainly include:
1. They must have a standard working procedure and standard China adoption procedure, and be able to guarantee that the related adoption policies and regulations from China are conveyed to adopters smoothly, truly and accurately.
2. They can provide pre-adoption training, adoption guidance and related consulting services for adopters and assist adopters to make pre-adoption preparations.
3. They can make home study of adoption families and complete home study reports. If provided by the laws of their countries that adoption organizations are not responsible for home study or for completing home study reports, they should assist adopters to make good home study reports.
4. They can provide post-adoption services to families adopting Chinese children and make true and timely post-adoption feedback reports for CCAA.
5. They could take active measures to protect the interests of the adoptees, while the adopters were not able to continue the nurture of the adoptees, till the adoptees were replaced properly.
Ⅶ. They must have stable and sound organizational setup.
They must have stable and formal offices and a sound organizational setup, with clear division of functions and responsibilities of the board of directors and executive bodies.
Ⅷ. They must have a professional team specialized in international adoption.
The staff of adoption agencies should have been well educated and they should have professional knowledge and experience for families and children's services.
(China-ccaa.org October 16, 2006)
