Russia bans adoption of orphans by U.S. couples

[undeterred]

Source: Los Angeles Times

By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times December 28, 2012, 4:13 p.m.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning the adoption of Russian orphans by U.S. families, the Kremlin announced Friday. The measure was widely seen as a retaliation for the Sergei Magnitsky Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama this month, which imposed sanctions on Russian officials involved in the death of an imprisoned lawyer in 2009 after he blew the whistle on a multimillion-dollar tax refund scam allegedly orchestrated by tax inspectors and police officers.

An adoption agreement signed and ratified by the two countries in June will be annulled after Jan. 1, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the television news network Russia-24.

Over the last two decades, Americans have adopted more than 60,000 Russian children. About 1,500 such adoption cases are in Russian courts, 52 of them in the final approval stage. The Kremlin's envoy for children's rights, Pavel Astakhov, told radio station Echo of Moscow that these children will not go to the United States but will be among the first to be adopted by Russian families.

Along with the controversial law, Putin also signed a decree providing financial perks, privileges and other measures to encourage adoptions in Russia, which have never run higher than 7,000 annually in recent years. There are more than 600,000 orphans in Russia.



Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks Friday at the Kremlin in Moscow. (Alexei Nikolsky, AFP/Getty Images / December 29, 2012)

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia-adoption-20121229,0,5556921.story

[Historic NY]

1. The only one to suffer will be the kids....

we have an adoptee from Siberia in the family, kids with a lots of problems but when worked on and with love they over come them and are for them most part very very happy.

[kitt6]

2. This is unfortunate for children.

But America is known for being meddlesome, gun tooting lunatics. America says Human Rights; Jesus!

[Piazza Riforma]

6. It's easy to think about the children and ignore the bigger picture.

This law didn't happen in a vacuum, it was a tit-for-tat response to US meddling in a Russian affair. Both these laws are provocative and wrong.

[go west young man]

9. That is the media meme being put forth.

Russian Furor Over U.S. Adoptions Follows American’s Acquittal in Boy’s Death
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world/europe/04adopt.html?_r=0

Read the story of Chase Harrison (Dmitri) and understand this has been a long time coming. It's convenient for the US to say it is because of the Malinsky affair but Russians have been demanding this for a long time. Type "adopted Russian boy murdered" into Google and see it from the eyes of the other side. There are plenty of links there. The Malinsky affair came after all the uproar in Russia so how could it be the cause? I do, however, feel sad for all the children and parents who won't be connected because of Russia's decision. I just think it's not fair to the memory of little Chase Harrison for the truth not to be told. this story is much more complex than the US media is portraying it. And why would they do that? Could it possibly be to rile up a new cold war now that terrorism isn't generating a lot of revenue for the MIC? Just my two cents.

[rury]

3. Bad news for Angelina Jolie

[get the red out]

5. Not very funny

There are a lot of families in this country that include international adoptees. They are people, not celebrity jokes.

[undeterred]

4. I wonder if American men can still get those mail order Russian brides...

[AtheistCrusader]

10. There are a lot of families that have been biding their time waiting, and paying fees and hoping

to close an international adoption, and move on.

I doubt any of them would find the jokes in this thread funny.


This means waiting lists get longer, because there are only a few countries left to adopt from.

[Purveyor]

7. Are there no American children to adopt that one must look to foreign countries to adopt?

Seriously, I do not know this...

[AtheistCrusader]

11. There are, but there are advantages to intl adoption.

For one, you have the added immovable barrier of the State Department between yourself and any shenanigans by the birth parents in another country.

http://kissrichmond.com/1915782/real-talk-judge-orders-couple-to-return-adopted-daughter-to-biological-father-because-he-is-an-indian-video/

Things like that don't happen too awful often, but they are terrifying to adoptive parents.
(Intl adoption is no iron clad barrier either, a Guatemalan child was returned recently because the adoption agency basically stole her, so there is still recourse when laws are broken.)

[undeterred]

12. How is that an advantage?

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Nobody wants to raise a kid for 2 years, and then have what was a 'done deal' adoption go awry

and have the kid ripped out of the only home they've ever known. This has happened a lot actually. Usually through no fault of the adopted parents.

[valerief]

13. Traditionally in the U.S. haven't most available adoptees been black? Racist America, home of

the NRA Congress and where the U.S. serving-the-wealthy-only corporate media gives its current President less respect than someone who stole your parking space, doesn't care about black orphans, IMHO.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

14. actually, a lot of U.S. adoption agencies won't let you adopt

a child of another race and/or restrict interracial adoptions. I looked into adopting a child domestically and I was specifically looking to adopt a non-blonde-blue-eyed-Caucasian, but there is some resistance. Interestingly, this resistance comes from African-American social worker groups.

One thing is sure - the whole adoption process needs to be revamped. It is incredibly long with unpredictable outcomes and it requires substantial amounts of money upfront. To be honest, it feels like buying a baby. Many birth mothers require payments of some kind, but there is no certainty that they won't change their minds.

Adopting through state agencies can be very inexpensive, but they favor family reunification at any cost and they don't have a good track record of actually disclosing a child's medical and psychological histories.

Being a parent is expensive, don't get me wrong. However, it doesn't require you to plunk down $15K-40K+ at once. Even with the tax credit and any employer contributions (if your employer provides them), it's still a lot of money for many people. The level of scrutiny you have to endure is also complex. Obviously, I have no problem with background checks. But references from friends are a problem. Neither my husband or I have many friends in the U.S. We are also not religious, so a lot of agencies would automatically exclude us from their adoption process.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. We were asked repeatedly to certify that our child wasn't of Native American heritage as part of the

process, for precisely this reason.

[Xithras]

19. Adopting in the U.S. can be difficult and expensive.

Private adoption agencies tend to discriminate heavily based on race, religion, and other factors. Public foster care systems have an inordinate number of "special needs" children (85%, based on one estimate I recently saw), many of the remaining children are from multi-child placements with an all-or-nothing requirement, a huge percentage are minority children and are saddled with limits as to who can adopt them and where they can live, and most states prefer that you foster the child(ren) for up to three years and shepherd them through the exhausting rights termination process with their biological parents. Oh, and then you often have to deal with years of state mandated therapy and counseling, whether or not you want or need it.

Most people just want to adopt a child and be done with it. Between the "good intentions" of the state run systems, and the blatant profiteering that occurs with private adoptions, adopting kids in the U.S. has become a huge pain in the arse. THAT is why so many Americans choose to go overseas. It's still expensive, but you can get it done in a fraction of the time and with half the headaches (and heartaches).

My wife and I have spent the past two years trying to adopt a kid. We tried state adoptions first, but quickly gave up on the bureaucratic mess that is the California adoption system. We then spent 18 months trying to adopt privately, and gave up after our third near-adoption was yanked from us (another couple flat-out bought the mothers family off). We've been working with an agency to arrange an adoption from Eastern Europe recently, but were told by the agency, just last week, that the Russian adoption cutoff is going to push a lot of prospective parents to the other Eastern European countries and will make adopting from there far more difficult than it already is. We're pretty much ready to give up on the whole thing at this point.

[LisaL]

22. I am sure people would be adopting american children if US didn't make it so difficult to adopt them

[Purveyor]

24. This is something I know nothing about, obviously...but I'm learning. eom

[sendero]

15. They are doing US a favor..

... and to avoid upsetting some folks I will just leave it at that.

[tavernier]

16. I don't understand...

Are you inferring that children from that country will grow up to be in some way inferior or problematic? I think that your "upsetting some folks" comment is upsetting in itself if this is what you are getting at.

If not, my apologies for my misunderstanding.

[Xithras]

20. Russian kids have an extraordinarily high rate of FAS

I don't know if that's what tavernier was referring to, but we had more than one adoption agency warn us away from Russia for that very reason. According to the worker, up to 80% of Russian orphans have FAS to some degree, and nearly half have severe attachment problems. While FAS and birth defects are always a risk, they pushed us toward other Eastern European countries like Bulgaria where the percentages are substantially lower.

[tavernier]

21. Thank you for the link.

I think all future parents considering adoption should be made aware of this. I am sad for the children but perhaps they are better off in a clinical environment.

[LisaL]

23. Not all of the children have FAS. And even if they do, I really doubt they are better off

in a "clinical environment."