Adoption is a legal process that ceases the rights and duties of birth parents in caring for a child, and transfers them to adoptive parents.
The Family Court will instruct applicants to seek consent from the Director-General of Social Welfare (DGSW) from MSF to act as Guardian-In-Adoption (GIA) for the child during the adoption process. The GIA has the duty of safeguarding the interest of the child before the Court and would conduct the necessary social investigations into the circumstances of the adoption application before submitting an affidavit to the Court. The Court will make the final decision on the adoption application, taking into account the child's welfare.
| | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Adoption Applications processed by the GIA | 396 | 358 | 352 | 326 | 387 | 375 | 433 | 453 | 363 | 328 |
Dataset (CSV): https://data.gov.sg/dataset/adoption-applications-processed-by-gia
Source: Ministry of Social and Family Development
Data accurate as at February 2022