Adopting your Indonesian stepchild is a special adoption proceeding because it takes place within a marriage between an adopting parent and a biological parent. Adopting your spouse’s child can make your family feel connected. When a step-parent adopts his spouse’s child, he becomes responsible for the child both legally and financially in addition to forming an emotional bond.
This type of adoption is pretty special in Indonesia. Not only because it is happening within a marriage, but this is also because of the shared custody of the child between the adopting parent and the spouse as the custody holder. It should not remove your spouse’s custody right and put it on you as the adopting parent. It’s more like making your spouse share the child custody with you as if the child was born within your marriage. Both of you will share parental authority in virtue of a court decree.
The step-child adoption is a civil proceeding. You need to complete all the required motions. You, as a Petitioner(s), are required to be proactive. You're the one that is presenting facts, information, legal grounds, supporting documents, and witnesses. The judge takes on a passive role, and shall only entertain your motions as long as you're doing it correctly. These are crucial to remember if you want a smooth proceeding.
If you manage to present the facts and information successfully, the court will issue a court order. It will make everything legitimate and legally binding. You need to provide supporting documents and at least two witnesses at court. When the court awards the court order, you must forward it to the civil registry office four further registration.
Prerequisite Requirements
Certain prerequisite requirements must be fulfilled for step-child adoption in Indonesia. If one item is missing, your petition will be rejected by the court. Please ensure that all of these exist at the time of the application for step child adoption is lodged in the court:
1. Marital status of your spouse. Your spouse must be legally divorced from the previous spouse before you can adopt your step-child. Divorce in Indonesia must be carried-out in a court of law and an absolute divorce decree must be issued by the court – a religious court for Moslems and a district court for Non-Moslems. This is a basic requirement.
2. Custody of the child. You need to discover whether or not your spouse has legal custody of the child. This information would be found in the divorce decree. This is very important since the Indonesian spouse will be sharing the custody with you. If he/she was never married before, and your step child was born out of legal marriage, then we suggest you apply for and obtain a Certificate of Child Custody before you start the adoption proceeding. The custody certificate may be in the form of court order that certifies the legal relationship between your wife as the child’s mother and the child, and that your wife is the holder of the custody.
3. Affidavit and consent. You may be supporting the child on a daily basis for daily living expenses, education, etc., but you must enter into an affidavit to make it even more official by certifying that you will be responsible for that. As for your spouse, he/she will have to consent to the proceeding. So, the two of you will need to initiate reciprocal actions for the adoption.
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