Uzbekistan Adoption

The U.S. State Department notes that only about 18 children were adopted from Uzbekistan last year. It also reports that adoption from Uzbekistan is risky, because there is a good deal of anti-adoption sentiment, and the Uzbek authorities sometimes refuse to finalize an adoption even after all legal requirements have been fully satisfied and the prospective parents are simply waiting for the decree to be signed, so they can pick up their child. As a result, I would urge you to consider the reputation of your agency very carefully. If your agency has many years of placing children from other countries, is known to be very cautious about starting new programs, and is being upfront with you about the risks, you may well have success. Sharon

Be careful of any agency with a "new program" in Uzbekistan. It's a very big risk to start an adoption there, after some major problems between some facilitators and the MOE. We never encountered any official who was anti-adoption, and the same can be said for most other parents I know who completed adoptions from Uzbekistan. There is a Yahoo group for Uzbekistan adoptions...not much action there. Less than 10 adoptions were completed in 2009. Ours was completed in 2008. I would love to know what agency/facilitator is offering waiting children.

Hi. Do you have actual experience with Uzbekistan or do you know of anyone that has. I would be interested in knowing about your experience. We have talked to two families that adopted and were happy. They reported it took over a year but I did not hear of any refusal to allow them to adopt. If you know of someone that had that experience I would like to talk to them. Our agency has been honest about the risks and we know that problems can happen. From what I ready they are happening everrywhere. It is really scary but we are matched with an actual child and we figure we has a good of chance as anywhere else. So we will see what happends. We are almost finished our dossier and will send it over in about a week.

I do have experience. We adopted our son in 2008. We spent 10 weeks in Uzbekistan completing the adoption. I'm also one of the moderators for the Yahoo group, so if you've posted there, I've probably answered some of your questions. If you have not, it's a fairly active board, and you'll get good support there. There are currently 3 agencies who are accepting dossiers for Uzbekistan ( it is a new program for all three ) and several more who have the program on hold. There are still many families who started the process 1-2 years ago waiting to bring their kids home. If you'd like more info on specifics about our adoption, you can send me a private message.