Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. In partnership with Holt International Children’s Services humanitarian organization based in the U.S, the Mongolia Immigration Agency has been organizing tours for children, who were adopted into American families, to have them acquainted with their home country since 2017. This time, five children of two families that were adopted through the international organization between 2005 and 2012 came back to Mongolia with their families to learn about the culture, heritage and traditional way of life.

During their visit, the children became acquainted with their documents being stored at the Mongolia Immigration Agency, and learned about when they were born, how they grew up and saw pictures of when they were little. Along with their parents, they then had an open discussion about their impressions of Mongolia. Noting that they are grateful for being given the opportunity to see the beautiful nature and learn about the traditions, they said that they were surprised to see modern tall buildings and the latest cars unlike how they expected it to be, and found it fascinating that they could see the beautiful nature and traditional gers not that far from outside the city.

The Millers family adopted their three children named Tugsbayar, Sarnai and Tamir from the Central Infant Sanitorium in 2005, 2009 and 2012 respectively. Noting that when they adopted their son Tamir, who wants to become a judge in the future, it coincided with Mr. Miller’s birthday, he said that the youngest son was truly the greatest gift of his life. Their eldest son Tugsbayar wants to major in marketing and work in the business sector, while their daughter Sarnai wishes to become a surgeon.

Saying that they want to visit Mongolia every year if possible, the family’s plans for their next visit is when their children enter college and become adults.

“We adopted our son Tugsbayar in 2005. When we first visited the Central Infant Sanitorium, we saw that they cared for all children despite the low number of staff. As we think that it is important that children receive the love and care they were unable to get from their biological parents from their guardians, we decided that we would adopt our next children from Mongolia again after adopting our eldest son,” said Mrs. Miller.

As for the second family, the Antonuks adopted their two sons named Davaabayar and Bayar in 2006 and 2010. The kind-hearted and humble Davaabayar, who has even become the champion of the state tournament for swimming, wants to become a great lawyer, while their second son Bayar, who has become the joy of the family just like his name, wishes to become a marine biologist as he loves sea animals.

Officials of the organization said, “On top of the requirements that are stated in the Family Law of Mongolia, the parents have to also fulfill other requirements, such as being financially capable of bringing up children, and provide documents on where they will live and what school they will go to. If the child is an infant, they also have to give information on whether they will look after them themselves or they will hire a babysitter. All of this information is gathered at our organization through the family survey.

As for post-adoption monitoring, a tripartite agreement is signed between the parents, the Mongolia Immigration Agency and the intermediary organization. And as according to the agreement, we receive post-adoption reports for children in the age group of 0-3 every 6 months, ages 4-8 every year, and ages 9-16 every two years from the country’s corresponding officials.”

Of the total of 269 children having been adopted by foreign citizens, the adoption procedure for 171 children has been done through intermediary organizations. As one of these organizations, Holt International has had 71 children adopted into families in the U.S thus far.

Mongolia joined the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 1998. Since then, the issues of Mongolian children being adopted by foreign citizens have been regulated by the Family Law of 1999 and the Regulation on the Procedure to Interview Foreign National Requesting Adoption of a Mongolian Child that was approved in 2001.