From 2001 to 2003, I had a survey that I called Angela's Expectations vs Outcome in Ukrainian Adoption. I was very fortunate and 217 families participated in this survey. The survey included families who adopted from 1998 to 2003.

85% of the families in the survey were Americans. The remaining were French, Danish, German, Israeli, Irish and Spanish.

In this survey I asked 28 questions. One question was which oblast (state) families adopted from.

80% of the children were adopted from 11 oblasts. Here is the list of oblasts and the percentage of adopted children.

Donetsk.............16.97%
Crimea..............10.09%
Zaporizhzhya.........9.63%
Odesa................9.63%
Lugansk..............7.80%
Kharkiv..............6.42%
Kyiv.................6.42%
Transcarpathia.......4.59%
Dniepropietrovsk.....2.75%
Poltava..............2.75%
Mykolayiv............2.75%

One of the first things that I looked at was population. Were families just adopting more children from more populous oblasts? Yes and No.

There are 24 oblasts and 1 autonomous republic (Crimea).

And the 11 oblasts listed above have 60% of Ukraine's population.

So here is the comparison between where the children are adopted vs the oblast's population.



Lviv has the least amount of adoptions and has 5.69% of Ukraine's population. I have only run into 5 families who internationally adopted from this region. I gather these orphanages just don't register their children.

Here are the rest of the oblasts; Khmel'nyts'kyi, Cherkassy, Kirovagrad, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Lutsk, Chernihiv, Kherson, Chernivtsi, Ivano Frankivsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Lviv.



Dnepropetrovsk is well known for being a difficult region. I know some adoptions that were dragged out over a 3 month period. The judge kept asking for more and more documents.

For instance, a single woman was asked to prove she was single. Why the judge didn't believe the home study?

This is the only oblast that asked adoptive parents to prove they own their home or rent their home.

But I wouldn't be afraid of getting a referral to Dnepropetrovsk. It may be more difficult... but every adoptive parent that I know says it was worth it.

I have heard that Donetsk economy output is 20% of Ukraine's GDP. And they are 10% of the country's population.

And that they have lots of day labor/transit work. People are pulled into the area looking for jobs. The grass is always greener somewhere else.

And there isn't a good social net for families on the bottom of the economy... especially when they don't have registered birth certificates. They are non-people.

I have heard this situation might play into why there are so many available children from Dontesk. 16.97% of the adopted children in my survey were from Dontesk.