6
1. A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best
interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and
assistance provided by the State.
2. States Parties shall in accordance with their national laws ensure alternative care for such a child.
3. Such care could include, inter alia, foster placement, kafalah of Islamic law, adoption or if necessary
placement in suitable institutions for the care of children. When considering solutions, due regard shall
be paid to the desirability of continuity in a child's upbringing and to the child's ethnic, religious,
cultural and linguistic background.
Article 21
States Parties that recognize and/or permit the system of adoption shall ensure that the best interests
of the child shall be the paramount consideration and they shall:
(a) Ensure that the adoption of a child is authorized only by competent authorities who determine, in
accordance with applicable law and procedures and on the basis of all pertinent and reliable
information, that the adoption is permissible in view of the child's status concerning parents, relatives
and legal guardians and that, if required, the persons concerned have given their informed consent to
the adoption on the basis of such counselling as may be necessary;
(b) Recognize that inter-country adoption may be considered as an alternative means of child's care, if
the child cannot be placed in a foster or an adoptive family or cannot in any suitable manner be cared
for in the child's country of origin;
(c) Ensure that the child concerned by inter-country adoption enjoys safeguards and standards
equivalent to those existing in the case of national adoption;
(d) Take all appropriate measures to ensure that, in inter-country adoption, the placement does not
result in improper financial gain for those involved in it;
(e) Promote, where appropriate, the objectives of the present article by concluding bilateral or
multilateral arrangements or agreements, and endeavour, within this framework, to ensure that the
placement of the child in another country is carried out by competent authorities or organs.
Article 22
1. States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is seeking refugee status
or who is considered a refugee in accordance with applicable international or domestic law and
procedures shall, whether unaccompanied or accompanied by his or her parents or by any other
person, receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance in the enjoyment of applicable
rights set forth in the present Convention and in other international human rights or humanitarian
instruments to which the said States are Parties.
2. For this purpose, States Parties shall provide, as they consider appropriate, co-operation in any
efforts by the United Nations and other competent intergovernmental organizations or nongovernmental organizations co-operating with the United Nations to protect and assist such a child and
to trace the parents or other members of the family of any refugee child in order to obtain information
necessary for reunification with his or her family. In cases where no parents or other members of the
family can be found, the child shall be accorded the same protection as any other child permanently or
temporarily deprived of his or her family environment for any reason , as set forth in the present
Convention.
Article 23