'Adoption is not a Plan B'

Adoption creates new family bonds and offers children in need of a home the chance to thrive in a supportive, nurturing environment.

It provides a permanent, lifelong connection between the adoptive parents and the adopted child, with the same legal rights and responsibilities as a biological parent-child relationship.
 
Despite the many wonderful aspects to adoption, the process to make it happen can be long and will always necessitate rigorous evaluation to determine prospective parents' suitability to adopt a child.
 
There are three adoption services in Luxembourg currently accredited and approved for adoptions by the central authority which is the ministry of National Education, Children and Youth (MENJE).

They are: The Adoption Service of the Luxembourg Red Cross (partner countries: Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Portugal and Slovakia), Amicale Internationale d’Aide à l’Enfance or AIAE (partner countries: Vietnam & India) and Naledi (partner country: South Africa).

The Adoption Service of the Luxembourg Red Cross is the only accredited agency for both national and international adoptions. MENJE may exceptionally, on the basis of relevant reasons, mandate the Adoption Service to supervise specific adoption cases in countries other than those where official partnerships exist.

Recent adoptions in Luxembourg

In 2023, a total of 27 children, 13 girls and 14 boys, were adopted by residents of the Grand Duchy, according to statistics from MENJE.

Of this number eight were Luxembourgish, six of whom were newborn babies and two older children.

For international adoptions, 19 children were given a new home in the Grand Duchy. Ten children were adopted from South Africa, five from Bulgaria, one from Burkina Faso and three came from South Korea.

From the 19 children adopted from abroad, 14 were between the ages of one and four, while five children were aged between five and nine years on arrival. Fifteen of the children were said to have specific needs, according to MENJE.

Types of adoption

There are two types of adoption open to national and foreign residents of Luxembourg, according to the office national d’enfance (ONE).

Simple adoption allows the adopted person to retain all rights and obligations in his or her family of origin, and in particular his or her hereditary rights.

Plenary adoption confers on the adopted person and his or her descendants the same rights and obligations as if he or she had been born of the adopters' marriage. It replaces original filiation and breaks all ties with the adopted person's blood family, except when the adoption concerns the child of the spouse.

Not a Plan B 

People thinking about pursuing an adoption need to understand from the outset that adoption should never be a Plan B, explains Claudine Koster, director of the Adoption Service of the Luxembourg Red Cross.

“It needs to be the new Plan A. If a couple is still very much longing for their own biological child then adoption is not the right option for them,” she advises. 
 

Who can adopt?

Ms Koster explains that prospective adoptive parents must be eligible to adopt under Luxembourg law if they are nationals. If they are from abroad their eligibility is decided as per the national law in their country of origin.

Luxembourg law states that unmarried couples that are in registered partnerships (PACS), unmarried couples in stable relationships and single individuals have the capacity to adopt a child. Marking an expansion of modern family dynamics, aligning with evolving social norms.

However, in the case of non-Luxembourgish nationals, who are resident here, the law of their home country applies, so if it permits adoption as a single person then that law is respected, she explains.

Under Luxembourg law, same sex couples are eligible to adopt since 2014.

Concerning the limitations of age, best practice dictates that the difference in age between the adopted child and adoptive parents should not exceed 45 years.
Furthermore, children and teenagers must be consulted prior to the finalisation of the adoption, provided that they have the capacity of making an informed judgement call, no longer being limited only to children over 15, always respecting the child's best interest.

Steps in the adoption process 

The first point of contact for prospective adoptive parents who wish to find out more about the process is the central authority, MENJE.

Candidates for both domestic and international adoptions will have to register for the mandatory adoption preparation cycle. This is made up of two general information sessions on adoption, which are three hours long and are free of charge for the participants. Following on from this are four sessions on adoption awareness, each running for four hours.

“This first session explores what adoption is and what it is not, provides general information as well as specifics about the legal process. It is designed to help you to figure out if adoption is for you. The Red Cross’s ‘House of Adoption’ accompanies interested candidates in the first information session on adoption. This is a specialist service made up of a multidisciplinary team of psychotherapists and psychologists.

“The second session involves the central authority together with the three accredited bodies who explain in detail the process around adoption in each country where there are existing partnerships,” Ms Koster explains.

Last year, 58 couples and seven single people took part in the first information sessions, according to figures from MENJE.

Following the successful completion of the information and awareness sessions, parents will receive a certificate of participation and this allows them to continue to the next step of the adoption journey.

A total of 29 certificates of participation were issued by the ministry in 2023.

"Once the prospective adoptive parents received the participation certification for having attended the awareness raising sessions (séances de sensibilisation), they can get in touch with one, two or three of the accredited bodies in order to enlist after having passed the pre-evaluation."

Suitability 

A rigorous pre-evaluation process must then take place to ensure that all criteria has been met, including identifying any unresolved trauma or losses the couple might have experienced. If it's the case that the couple could not conceive naturally they must be at a place where they have accepted this fact, Ms Koster outlines.

"The pre-evaluation is intended to make sure the minimum requirements for prospective adoptive parents e.g., legal requirements, age requirements, nationality requirements, job conditions, housing conditions, motivation and adoption plans are compatible with an adoption procedure.

"Furthermore, the prospective adoptive parents should have come to terms with their difficulty to procreate biologically, and no medical fertility treatment should be actively engaged in by them," she points out.

It is a highly detailed process because, despite good intentions, not all candidates are suitable to become adoptive parents.  
 
“It’s about their capacity to give a child a secure environment – emotionally, psychologically, physically, socially and financially.

“A child has the right to have a family but it is not a right to have a child. The parental capacities needed for an adoptive child are different to those required for being a parent to your own child. An adoptive child comes with specific needs."

There will also be practical considerations that need to be considered in line with best practice. One such example worth noting is that a family wishing to adopt must ensure that the child will have their own room and not have to share, Ms Koster adds.

Additionally, it is recommended that there is a limit of one other child in families hoping to adopt.

A multidisciplinary team of the Adoption Service, composed of social workers, a nurse, a psychologist, a doctor, a lawyer and an administrative clerk, will ultimately decide if a couple can move forward with an adoption.

In 2023, a positive evaluation was given to 13 couples allowing them to proceed with an adoption, MENJE figures show. Of these number 11 couples requested to adopt in South Africa, one in India and one in Vietnam.

How long does it take?

 How long does it take to become an adoptive parent? It is not easy to estimate because it depends on so many variables.

"The process is long. It can take years. Under a year is the exception,” Ms Koster cautions. "But it depends because for some families we did see it go through much quicker.”

Intercountry adoption can be a long process with hefty administrative procedures as well as legal steps to be followed. “It is very difficult to give an average waiting time because it depends on so many factors such as how many files they have already in the country.

“But if you are open to receiving a child with specific needs and medical needs it can be that your file is processed sooner than normal. Or if it is a country with a lot of children in need of intercountry adoption it can be faster,” she adds.

“We have very clear standards, the Hague Convention, for the protection of the standards of a child’s rights. Even though we are aware that there are a lot of children in need, we always have to be sure that children are in need of intercountry adoption.”

For national adoptions, the timeframe is equally uncertain. “Last year we had quite a lot of adoptions, but it depends as some years we have zero.”

“We never know how many ‘secret births’ or accouchement anonym there will be." [Accouchement anonym is where during childbirth, the mother is not obliged to give her identity. The child can then be put up for adoption. The mother has three months to reconsider her decision.]

"If you are interested in adopting, the place to start is to attend the information sessions as this will help you understand the process and requirements and help you clarify if this is really the right project for you."