25 children were adopted in Bosnia and Herzegovina last year, most of them under the age of two.
According to data from the BiH Statistics Agency, 17 children were adopted in Republika Srpska and FBiH, eight of them under the age of two. On the other hand, Brčko District does not have data on adopted children by category, gender and age.
Of the 17 children mentioned, ten of them were abandoned by their parents.
“In 2024, four children aged three to five and five children aged six to 10 were adopted in the RS and FBiH,” the Agency states.
And when it comes to guardianship, last year a total of 2,255 children were in guardianship families in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
By the way, in Republika Srpska only one boy was adopted last year, aged up to two years, and experts explained that the reason for such a small number of adopted children is that biological parents do not want to sign consent for adoption.
There are two options for adoption, full and partial, and earlier Irena Joldžić, director of the Banjaluka Center for Social Work, explained that the difference between full and partial adoption is that a child who is fully adopted is up to ten years old.
“When a child is fully adopted, the biological parent has no information about who adopted the child and where it was adopted,” Joldžićeva said earlier.
Maja Savanović Zorić, psychologist and systemic family psychotherapist, points out for “Nezavisne” that the process of adopting children in BiH is, unfortunately, still long, complicated and emotionally very demanding, both for the children and for potential adopters.
“Besides that it includes numerous administrative and legal steps, the process itself is filled with periods of uncertainty, waiting and great emotional burden. For children waiting for adoption, the feeling of rejection and insecurity is especially difficult”, said Savanović Zorićeva.
As he says, regardless of age, every child feels it – both the youngest and those who have already grown up in the system.
“However, adoption at an earlier age is easier in terms of faster emotional and family bonding, because the child is in a phase of intense attachment development. Older children, especially those who have gone through multiple placements or traumatic experiences, often carry deeper emotional scars and require more time, understanding and psychological support to develop trust and stable relationships,” she explained.
He points out that adoptive parents, on the other hand, go through a series of expectations, checks and doubts – both from society and from their own internal dilemmas.
“They are faced with the fear that they ‘will not be good enough’, worry about the child’s potential trauma, but also often idealized images of parenthood that the adoption process destroys. That is why it is very important that all parties in the process prepare with professional support – both before the adoption and long after it,” said Savanović Zorićeva.
He states that ultimately, adoption is not just a legal act, but a deeply emotional one.
“It brings love, but also responsibility for healing and building trust. When it is done with full dedication, it shows that family is not always the place where we were born, but also what we consciously create, through love, understanding and patience,” she concludes, reports Independent newspaper.
