Seven same-sex couples in Costa Rica are processing adoptions in the National Children’s Trust (PANI), while another two (homosexual couples) have already passed all the analyzes and are in the Registry of Eligible Families.
This was confirmed by the coordinator of the PANI Adoption Department, Jorge Urbina, who explained that all the processes carried out in the entity have the best interests of the minor as a priority.
In the case of the seven same-sex couples that are in process, like the rest of the applications, they must first undergo a suitability assessment process and then be part of the eligible list.
Psychosociolegal assessment
“As for applicants for these types of families, what the process offers is a psychosocial legal assessment to opt for the adoptive suitability condition for a minor person profile, considering the adoptive desire of the applicants and the characteristics, competencies, and protective capacities technically detected in them during the assessment.
“Such condition, in turn, what allows families is to be part of a Registry of Eligible Families, on which the Adoption Department and the Adoption Councils carry out compatibility analysis and professional technical selection for the location of people. minors under family protection for adoptive purposes, according to the cases of children and adolescents they require it”, said Urbina.
In the PANI they explained that the records or statistics that are kept from the eligible list are based on the legal types of application or location, that is, if it is national and international, individual or joint (couple).
Suitability assessment
“Currently we have joint home parental applications in the suitability assessment process and we have joint application home parental families that have already been declared suitable and that are forming part of the Registry of eligible families at the national level. We can also say that, to date, potentially adoptive protective placements have not been generated in families with joint home parental requests,” Urbina explained.
It is also added that the two same-sex couples that passed the entire evaluation process represent 1.28 percent of all active families existing today in the Eligible Registry.
The possibility that home parental families process an adoption has been a reality since May 2020 when equal marriage came into force and three articles of the Family Code that prevented it were repealed.
Before that moment, it was impossible to register joint-schools or co-schools and, therefore, two people of the same sex could not share family rights over the same boy or girl, like any married couple.
Potentially adoptive location
“Our process is not structured to respond to the requirement and adult request of a potential adoptive location, it is defined and regulated by regulations, to respond to the protection needs of minors, considering their history, characteristics and attention requirements in all their areas of development, as well as their opinion, within the framework of the application of the principle of a progressive autonomy. In fact, the compatibility processes carried out by the Department of Adoptions and Theoretical Draw carried out by the Adoption Councils, are carried out within the processes of protection of minors, not within the processes of application of families”, the official said.
