Latvia: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children,

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A/HRC/12/23/Add.1

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undertaken to promote adoption and foster care, in particular favouring national over foreign

adoptions since 2004. The number of foreign adoptions used to be three to four times more than

national adoptions, whereas today, the number of national adoptions is almost double the number

of foreign adoptions. The Government reported that at 31 December 2008, 1,351 adoptable

children were registered in the database and 479 of them were already living in a family,

leaving 872 (64.5 per cent) for whom adoptive families had to be found. In 2008, 73 children

were taken into pre-adoption care in national adopters’ families, which was 15 more than in

2007. Of the remaining adoptable children, the Government reported that 484 of them had a

disability or serious health problem. The Special Rapporteur encourages the Government to

pursue measures to encourage the adoption of children in these two categories, including

psychological and financial support to adoptive families, medical and psychological follow-up

and support of those children, as well as awareness-raising campaigns. In 2008, 83 foreign

adopters were granted permission to adopt children from Latvia, 31 less than in 2007. The

Minister reported that as of 2003, several legislative acts were passed in implementation of the

1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of

Intercountry Adoption. The Minister added that procedures binding Orphans’ Courts’ decisions

regarding adoptions are now more clearly prescribed.