Who Can Be Adopted from Iran

Ruins of the Achaemenid palace of Persepolis, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Source: Wikipedia.org.

In addition to U.S. immigration requirements, Iran has specific requirements that a child must meet in order to be eligible for legal guardianship:

Relinquishment: The child's father, paternal grandfather, and mother must all be either unknown or dead.

Abandonment: The child must have been placed under the care of a public institution without any contact from any of the above listed relatives for three full years.

Age of Adoptive Child: The child must be under 12 full years of age.

Sibling Adoptions: None

Special Needs or Medical Conditions: None

Waiting Period or Foster Care: After consulting the institution or person in charge of the child's temporary care, and prior to issuance of legal custody/guardianship approval, the court will place the child in the care of the prospective adoptive parents for a six-month probation period. During the probation period, the court may terminate the guardianship upon request from the Public Prosecutor, the National Society for the Protection of Children, or the institution where the child was previously under care, or on the basis of its own conclusion. Likewise, the prospective adoptive parents may declare that they have changed their minds during the probation period, in which case the court will terminate the legal custody/guardianship.

Caution: Prospective adoptive parents should be aware that not all children in orphanages or children’s homes are adoptable. In many countries, including Iran, birth parents place their child(ren) temporarily in an orphanage or children’s home due to financial or other hardship, intending that the child return home when this becomes possible. In such cases, the birth parent(s) have rarely relinquished their parental rights or consented to their child(ren)’s adoption.

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