The adoption institute is the most acceptable form of protection and care for children who don’t have adequate parental care. Topics which are analyzed in detail within this paper are: the development and purpose of the adoption institute, the assumptions which are a necessary precondition for adoption and the process and effects of the adoption. Whereas one of the basic preconditions for adoption is the consent of the child's biological parents to it, one case which is an exception to this law is elaborated in this paper. Particularly, parents who are deprived of parental rights are not required to give their consent to the adoption of their child. The assumptions which lead to the pronouncement of the family-legal act of the deprivation from parental rights are analyzed in this paper. It is an act which is rarely pronounced, because it has extremely restrictive effects on the parents. The paper seeks to highlight the importance of protecting children who are raised in hazardous family circumstances and the necessity for timely pronouncement of the act of deprivation from parental rights, in order to provide children, whose parents are likely to fail to take adequate care of them, with the opportunity to grow up in a suitable family environment. The paper is supported by relevant statistical data. Also, it emphasizes the obligation to act according to the principle of the best interests of the child, that is according for the child's welfare, as stipulated by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Family Law.