FAQ – General

The fee structures for adoptions are legally prescribed and there may not be a financial profit derived from any adoption. Agencies are at liberty to charge a professional fee at their discretion. These fees are reflected in the adoption report presented to the court, so are thus transparent and strictly monitored.

This programme is about giving information and clarity on the available resources and options, of which abortion is one. The key focus is on the person and the crisis and being a comprehensive resource on the option of adoption.

There are no exact statistics to this effect but estimations are that there are more than 500 000 children who could benefit from adoption.

There are very few white or Indian children available for adoption. One reason for this is that in these racial groups it has become more socially acceptable for women to keep their babies following a crisis pregnancy. Due to our country’s socio-economic reality and the prevalence of HIV/Aids the majority of orphaned and abandoned children are black.

Statistics from 2007 indicate that just over 56 000 legal abortions are performed per year. This appears to be on the decline as previous years showed numbers over 80 000.

With foster care, the child is placed in the care of a family where they are treated as part of the family but the legal connection with birth-mother/parents is retained with the intention being that the child will be returned to the birth-mother/parents.

With adoption, once the court has approved the adoption the child, it is considered to have exactly the same status as a child born to the adoptive family.

A report, called ‘Teenage Pregnancy in South Africa – With a specific focus on school-going learners’ produced by the HSRC showed that in 2008, 62.8 per thousand female learners were pregnant.

Approximately 2400 adoptions are registered per year on average.