Adoption in Malaysia

Thanks Sharon for your informtion regarding adoption in Malaysia. You are right adoption in Malaysia from a foreigner does require that you live in the country prior to adoption. And as a a non-muslim foreigner you may oly adopt a non-muslim child. As my family are Australian expatriates living here on assignment it was actually relatively easy to adopt, as long as we could prove that we had been here for at least a year with the purpose not being that we came to adopt. All that is required of us is to identify a child that needs a family, and then apply to adopt that child through a court order, as long as the child has a statutory declaration from the birth parents relinquishing their parental rights we are able to adopt said child within a minimum of six months. This is a legitamate process and follows all laws in Malaysia in regards to the process of adopting a child in Malaysia. All embassies I know of recognize this as a valid adoption. I know of a few american families that have adopted this way. I have read the same information as you have talked about, however as always in Malaysia what is written and how it is actually done is definately not always the same. Living in Malaysia has been a great opportunity for us to extend our family the way we had always planned, but never actually thought possible.