TWELVE children in Central Visayas, 6 years old and below, were successfully matched by the Inter Country Adoption Board (ICAB) to prospective adoptive parents in Canada, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, Finland, Italy, Australia, Norway, Netherlands and the USA.
The children came from the child caring agencies in Leyte and the cities of Cebu and Dumaguete, namely, DSWD’s Reception and Study Center for Children, Norfil Foundation Cebu, Rainbow Village and Asilo dela Milagrosa.
A social worker from Leyte presented additional two children for matching.
Aside from the child-adoption matching, ICAB also oriented the social workers from Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and Leyte on the inter-country adoption procedure.
For this quarter alone, DSWD has submitted 46 children for onsite matching, of whom 13 were already cleared by the DSWD’s Protective Services Bureau for inter-country adoption.
The board had been assisting the DSWD in finding permanent family through inter-country adoption for children who were not matched locally.
Last year alone, DSWD in Central Visayas had processed 99 adoption cases, most of which were local adoption with 35 cases while 2 were inter regional and 62 were adopted outside the country.