Will Russian orphans be saved from American monsters?

Russia and the United States hope to conclude the agreement about adoptions before the end of the current year. The document is being prepared to protect Russian orphans from inadequate behavior of American foster parents who can turn the lives of helpless children in a foreign state into hell. In most cases, Russian orphans move to live in the United States, and child abuse reports mostly come from this country.

Many of such terrible stories made countless headlines all over the world. The Leschinskis who tortured three sisters, Artyom Saveliev, a little boy, who had been flown back to Russia by his adoptive mother unaccompanied, like a pair of shoes, Dima Yakovlev, another little boy, who died a horrible death after his adoptive father had left him locked in a car during a very hot day.

Sixteen Russian children died in 17 years due to the fault of their foster parents. All of them fell victims to cruelty of adoptive parents.

According to statistics, it is US citizens who adopt children from Russia most often. However, it is America that regularly provides very sad and terrifying news about little Russians.

Russia is ranked third after China and Guatemala among the countries, where US foster parents travel to adopt children. Last year, American citizens adopted nearly 1,600 Russian children.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading these stories is: one must forbid foreigners from adopting Russian children. However, such a radical measure would deprive thousands of orphans of their chance for normal life. At the end of the day, not all foreigners are monsters - the majority of them take care of their children and love adoptive kids as much as they love their own.

The new agreement will regulate all nuances connected with the adoption of Russian orphans by foreign parents. At present moment, there is no system to control adopted children's lives abroad. Adoptive parents must provide regular reports, but if the system worked, there would not be so many tragic stories.

The new agreement stipulates that an adopted child still holds Russian citizenship before she or he turns 18 years of age. This is being done to give a child a legal opportunity to communicate with employees of the Russian Consulate Office and other adequate departments.

Now it seems that the negotiations regarding the new agreement have reached a final stage. The document is to be signed before the new year.

Russia has not banned the adoptions of its orphans for the USA. Russian kids continue to arrive in US families.

"The negotiations proceed and we think they're going very well, and we hope to have an agreement before the end of the year," Special Advisor for Children's Issues Ambassador Susan Jacobs said. She added that Russia continues processing U.S. requests concerning adoption of Russian children.

However, Pavel Astakhov, Russia's children's rights ombudsman, noted that the process of US-Russian adoptions had slowed down. "It hasn't been completely frozen, but it has become much slower. Courts make positive decisions only in extreme cases, for example, when it goes about severely ill children that need urgent operations," Astakhov said.

Ksenia Obraztsova

Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian